{"id":295116,"date":"2025-03-01T23:10:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T23:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/01\/indonesia-protects-walking-sharks-are-other-sharks-next\/"},"modified":"2025-03-01T23:10:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T23:10:28","slug":"indonesia-protects-walking-sharks-are-other-sharks-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/01\/indonesia-protects-walking-sharks-are-other-sharks-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia protects \u2018walking sharks.\u2019 Are other sharks next?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Indonesian government has granted six species of threatened \u201cwalking sharks\u201d the highest level of protection across all national waters \u2014 a move experts hope will lead to the conservation of other sharks, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-020-03173-9.epdf?sharing_token=6mhSNB_tYWj-BsIvdGviWNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NU0lFCB2vOiCTf9239SodD0SImLnyEHHK5Ro93Qk-44QCywvZL5EyDaT4R0ZeRkRBf-F27p4mcncKlj8KbnlVHY7ApREo_W_CO8qoADMJc-LqKavC-ZiyMIe-4S-k9XdutpgXipO_o2IeiuUIUryPUWrl4J9x25Aa0xG11zZSja95TtaUV_dKzApBL0WUjMDY%3D&amp;tracking_referrer=www.theguardian.com\" target=\"_blank\" data-sf-ec-immutable=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">whose numbers have plummeted<\/a> due largely to the shark fin trade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWalking sharks are small, charismatic and absolutely harmless to humans. Our hope is that they will be ambassadors for the conservation of their toothier cousins,\u201d said Iqbal Herwata Putra, a scientist with Konservasi Indonesia, Conservation International\u2019s main partner in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a big step that culminates years of effort,\u201d he added. \u201cWe hope it will give walking sharks the chance to thrive in a changing climate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ciorg.imgix.net\/images\/default-source\/default-album\/ci_34458555_full?&amp;auto=compress&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=crop?&amp;auto=compress&amp;auto=format&amp;w=800\" alt=\"\"\/><span class=\"image-credits--overlay\">\u00a9 Mark Erdmann<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"image__caption\">A leopard epaulette shark in the Milne Bay region of eastern Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n<p>The Indonesian government and Konservasi Indonesia worked to show that the protections \u2014<br \/>\n    which ban all fishing and collecting of walking sharks \u2014 support the survival of a species that\u2019s important to Indonesia\u2019s biodiversity and benefit local communities because of the ecotourism that walking sharks attract.<\/p>\n<p>Walking sharks stand apart from other sharks for a couple of reasons. The first, of course, is their preferred mode of transport, which has captivated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publish.csiro.au\/mf\/MF19163\" target=\"_blank\" data-sf-ec-immutable=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">scientists<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scubadiving.com\/walking-sharks-what-new-scientific-discovery-means-and-what-it-doesnt-mean\" target=\"_blank\" data-sf-ec-immutable=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">divers<\/a>. They use muscular pectoral and pelvic fins to shimmy across the shallow ocean floor, poking their heads under coral and rocks in search of small fish, snails and crustaceans to eat. They can even slow their breathing and heart rate to wobble on land, across tidepools and reef flats, for up to an hour.<\/p>\n<p>The second is their tendency to stay very close to home. Most walking sharks live out their lives within a mile of where they hatched. And they are only found in a relatively small area circling Northern Australia and New Guinea. Within that ring, individual species of walking shark, also known as epaulette sharks, occupy very specific habitats, with no two species of walking sharks overlapping in any given area. For example, the Cenderawasih epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium galei) is only found in Cenderawasih Bay, northwest of the Indonesian province of Papua \u2014 an extremely small area for a shark species distribution.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"New species of &quot;walking&quot; shark found in Indonesia | Conservation International (CI) - 2013\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HXEfud1c-do?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\u00a0<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor comparison, whale sharks and great white sharks are found in every ocean \u2014 and the common black tip reef shark is found across the entire Pacific and Indian Oceans, and into the Red Sea,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservation.org\/blog\/meet-a-scientist-a-species-discovering-savant\" data-sf-ec-immutable=\"\">Mark Erdmann<\/a>, who leads Conservation International\u2019s marine program in the Asia-Pacific and <a href=\"https:\/\/birdsheadseascape.com\/download\/biodiversitytaxonomyecology\/Vanderwright-et-al-2021-Hemiscyllium-extinction-risk.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" data-sf-ec-immutable=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">co-authored a report<\/a> that outlined the threats facing walking sharks, and ultimately led to their protection. \u201cTo have a shark species that is found only in one relatively small bay is unheard of in shark biogeography.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Species with more limited ranges are often more vulnerable to localized threats such as pollution, overfishing or natural disasters. The fact that walking sharks live in small, isolated groups puts even healthy populations at risk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf anything goes wrong \u2014 say a tsunami or volcanic eruption \u2014 an entire species could be knocked out in one go,\u201d Erdmann said.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, climate change is making walking sharks even more vulnerable. Rising ocean temperatures are destroying the <a href=\"https:\/\/oceanservice.noaa.gov\/facts\/coralreef-climate.html\" target=\"_blank\" data-sf-ec-immutable=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">coral and seagrass<\/a> habitats where walking sharks live and hunt for food. And unlike other species of sharks, walking sharks can\u2019t simply migrate to another habitat because they are generally unable to swim across deep water or long distances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWalking sharks tend to spend their entire lives on the same reef,\u201d said Iqbal. \u201cWhen that gets degraded, they have nowhere else to go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walking sharks are the youngest shark species on the planet, evolving as a separate genus only 9 million years ago \u2014 a mere blink in evolutionary terms compared to other sharks whose fossil records dates back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhm.ac.uk\/discover\/shark-evolution-a-450-million-year-timeline.html\" target=\"_blank\" data-sf-ec-immutable=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">450 million years<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere&#8217;s something symbolic about ensuring that we are protecting the most recently evolved sharks out there,\u201d Erdmann said. \u201cAnd as the climate changes, hopefully this is a group of sharks that has the ability to keep evolving to survive new threats.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<h2>Further reading:<\/h2>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>Mary Kate McCoy is a staff writer at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservation.org\/act\/subscribe\">Sign up for email updates<\/a>. Also, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservation.org\/act\">please consider supporting our critical work<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservation.org\/blog\/indonesia-protects-walking-sharks-are-other-sharks-next\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Indonesian government has granted six species of threatened \u201cwalking sharks\u201d the highest level of protection across all national waters \u2014 a move experts hope<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":295117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}