In India, marine biologists used genetic equipment and talked to fishermen about how stingray species are doing.
India has been one of the world’s leading shark and ray manufacturers for several decades, but catches and exports of sharks and rays are now in steady decline and more than a portion of the rays in the northern Indian Ocean are threatened with extinction.
Alissa Barnes, a fisheries and shark biologist, explains that despite this importance, there is a “glaring gap” in fundamental clinical knowledge about rays.
“After a year or two of working with sharks, I’ve learned that in this field a lot of importance is given to the larger charismatic species and even less to their cousins: rays,” he says, adding that he will continue to build a task to examine rays and, with this fundamental data, lay the groundwork for targeted conservation movements and fisheries management.
“The biggest challenge for the fishermen was to accept the truth with me and remind me every day of my position as a researcher in the system,” she says. “It was (and still is) especially complicated, as hedging policies were put in place. position in the afterlife that severely affected the livelihoods of fishermen.
The study, which began at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, documented drivers involved in ray fishing through surveys at landing sites and interviews throughout India’s two major coastal fishing states: Gujarat and Maharashtra.
“The biggest opportunity for me is to put everything similar to manta rays on the map and bring more awareness to this group,” he says, adding that the purpose is to fill in the data gap and create a comprehensive list of species.
“Today, while we know 10 percent about sharks, we know even less about rays, their behavior and ecology, their cultural significance, and much more,” he says.
Alissa Barnes, a fisheries and shark biologist, who recently works at the Wildlife Conservation Society-Array. [ ] India.
Barnes grew up in the Indian coastal city of Mumbai and says her adventure in marine biology has been “very glamorous and straightforward. “
“I think all those visits to the beach as a child and then as a master’s student (to volunteer on projects and explore intertidal systems) subconsciously had an effect on me,” she says, adding that she volunteers for terrestrial projects. Before the transition, I had marine projects.
“I say my love affair with sharks began as an arranged marriage. We met through my mentor and they told me it would be a smart marriage,” Barnes says. “It’s been over 8 years, and despite being in shark fishing it has meant getting more involved with fishing communities than sharks (dead or alive), I’m still blown away every time I find new facts about those lovely fish!”
Barnes now works at the Wildlife Conservation Society-India and explains that scientists from the Global South bring varied thoughts and responses to global challenges.
“I also believe that there is no one-size-fits-all solution – I believe that when looking for answers, smaller teams of stakeholders can rarely bring about big changes,” he says. “It is vital to take a step back, compare and analyze the challenge and dangers involved, take into consideration the nuances and formulate explicit responses for a region.
Women unload a fishing boat at Rupen Beach, a small fishing village near the city of Dwarka on India’s west coast.
Meanwhile, in other parts of South Asia, Lankika Anjani, a researcher at the Blue Resources Trust in Sri Lanka, explains that Sri Lanka’s first shark and ray conservation genetics lab focuses on maintaining the conservation genetics of shark, ray and chimaera species, an area dedicated to genetic data. to help conserve species.
Sri Lanka’s sovereign waters in the Indian Ocean cover a domain the length of France (510,000 kilometers or about 200,000 miles) and in this vast domain there are more than 50 species of sharks, of which a dozen are commercially important.
“As a first task there, I apply to establish a genetic workflow to identify shark and ray species using next-generation sequencing,” Lankika says. “The second level of the task would be to identify products in Sri Lankan industry and export that cannot be visually known otherwise (meat, oil, etc. ). “
More than 65% of Sri Lanka’s shark and ray species are threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List and 12% of species lack adequate knowledge or are not assessed through the Red List, which is Shark Awareness Day, which is celebrated in July. 14.
Lankika says one of the lab’s main goals is to learn about the extent of mislabeling of products, such as dried shark or ray meat sold as generic dried fish.
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