However, there were indications that an international consensus was emerging on the need for improved control of fishing for shark species, including skates and rays.

And when I was five, my parents gave me an orange Schwinn Sting Ray bicycle.

Stocks of this highly prized fish have declined by up to 80 since the dawn of industrialized fishing, and this has been on ICCAT s watch. In the case of sharks and rays, a recent survey indicates that close to one third of the 64 ocean living species are on the verge of extinction.

And to make that point even more visual, I swam under the shrimp boat and made this picture of the guy shoveling this bycatch into the sea as trash and photographed this cascade of death, you know, animals like guitarfish, bat rays, flounder, pufferfish, that only an hour before, were on the bottom of the ocean, alive, but now being thrown back as trash.

The Convention s memorandum of understanding on shark conservation, which lists seven endangered species, has attracted 35 signatories so far. Next month, representatives from these countries will meet in Quito, Ecuador, to discuss extending the list to include the great and scalloped hammerheads, the silky shark, thresher sharks, sawfish, and mobula rays.