Every year across the United States, thousands of sharks are caught, dragged from the ocean, weighed, photographed, and killed in fishing tournaments that award prizes, trophies, and bragging rights to individuals who take pleasure in the suffering of these ancient marine animals.
These events are often marketed as family-friendly competitions, yet undercover investigators at shark tournaments have documented participants violently beating protected species, cutting off the fins of living animals, and discussing dragging exhausted sharks behind boats until they died. Children are frequently brought to these competitions and encouraged to take photographs beside bleeding, dead, and dying animals, normalizing violence toward wildlife and reinforcing the dangerous idea that nature exists primarily for human entertainment.
Shark catching tournaments are not a form of subsistence fishing, and countless sharks and other fish are thrown back into the ocean after suffering severe hook injuries because they are not deemed impressive enough to win prizes.
Sharks are among the most important and ancient animals in the ocean, predating trees and dinosaurs and surviving multiple mass extinctions. As apex predators, they help maintain balance throughout marine ecosystems, regulating prey populations and protecting habitats such as seagrass meadows that store vast amounts of carbon. When shark populations decline, the consequences ripple throughout entire ocean ecosystems. Unfortunately, shark populations around the world are already in crisis — roughly one-third of shark and ray species are now considered threatened with extinction, and many species commonly targeted by shark-fishing tournaments, including makos and threshers, are already vulnerable or threatened. Unlike most fish, sharks reproduce slowly, mature late in life, and produce relatively few offspring, making it difficult for depleted populations to recover. Shark-fishing tournaments worsen this problem by rewarding the capture of the largest animals, which are often breeding adults, and pregnant sharks are frequently victims of these competitions.
Yet while the world is moving toward stronger conservation measures, including landmark new CITES protections that granted certain shark species the highest level of international protection for the first time in history, shark-fishing tournaments continue across the United States, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency charged with protecting our marine resources, continues to register these events and use sharks caught during tournaments as a source of scientific data.
NOAA insists that it does not sponsor or operate shark-fishing tournaments. However, the agency requires tournament registration, collects tournament catch information, and has defended the value of these events as research opportunities. Recent investigations have raised concerns that NOAA's involvement with shark tournament research may be helping drive the killing of vulnerable and endangered shark species. Even more troubling, NOAA recently proposed changes that would weaken protections for certain Atlantic shark species and increase fishing opportunities despite growing global concern about shark declines and the absence of up-to-date stock assessments for some affected populations.
An agency tasked with protecting marine ecosystems should not be relying on shark-killing competitions as a source of scientific data, nor should it be helping legitimize events that celebrate the capture and death of animals whose populations are already under pressure around the world.
Sharks are not trophies. They are intelligent, ancient, ecologically essential animals who deserve our respect and protection.
Take Action Now
Join Species Unite in calling on NOAA Fisheries to stop legitimizing shark-fishing tournaments and to develop policies that reflect modern conservation science, respect for wildlife, and the growing global consensus that sharks deserve stronger protections, not competitions built around their suffering and death.
