Management Concern: High    

Adequacy of Information: Low

Summary extracts from Outlook Report 2009

• There is concern about declines in populations of some of the 134 shark and ray species recorded in the Great Barrier Reef

What do we know?

Relevant pages from Outlook Online include:

• Vulnerability of chondrichthyan fishes of the Great Barrier Reef to climate change
• State of the Great Barrier Reef Report: sharks and rays [3.1MB]
• Risk assessment of northern Australia sharks and rays
• Sharks and Sawfish listed as 'threatened' under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
• Shark population density and zoning
  

Existing policies and management actions

• Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan
  
• Australian Government policy on climate change 
• Queensland Government climate change policies and strategies 
• Climate Change Action Plan 2007-2012
• Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Position Statement on the conservation and management of sharks and rays in the Queensland East Coast Inshore Finfish Fishery [215KB]
  
• Policy on managing activities that include the direct take of a Protected Species from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
• Queensland East Coast Inshore Fin Fish Fishery 
  
• Queensland Fisheries monitoring
  
• Queensland Management of Commercial Fisheries
  
• Queensland Management of Recreational Fisheries
  
• National Shark Recovery Group
  
• Shark-plan Implementation Review Committee
  

Future management requirements

• Development of a GBRMPA position statement on sharks
• Biodiversity Strategy
• Development of Shark-plan II by Shark-plan Implementation Review Committee

Defined research questions

Shark and ray biology

• What roles do sharks and rays play in the ecosystem functioning and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef, and what are the ecological consequences of reducing their populations?
• How do changes to environmental conditions (eg. declining water quality, habitat degradation, climate change) affect sharks and rays?

Impacts, sustainability and management

• What are the key threatening processes, their impacts, and the critical issues for the conservation of threatened elasmobranch species (eg. grey nurse shark, great white shark, whale shark, freshwater sawfish, green sawfish, speartooth) and for other high risk elasmobranch species in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park? How can risks be reduced?
• What are the movement patterns and habitat use of sharks and rays in the Great Barrier Reef? How do these patterns of movement and habitat use relate to existing and potential management arrangements concerning sharks and rays? How do they inform research on status and abundance of sharks populations?
• What are the sources and current total levels of mortality to shark and ray species in the Great Barrier Reef from natural and anthropogenic sources? What levels of mortality are sustainable?

Human dimensions

• What are community attitudes, perceptions and values (e.g. social, economic, cultural, ecological) towards shark and rays, including their use and conservation in the Great Barrier Reef?
• What is the community’s level of awareness of the status and conservation issues relating to sharks and rays in the Great Barrier Reef? 

Related information

• Current Research and Monitoring