School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia.
Conserv Biol. 2010 Oct;24(5):1212-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01491.x.
General consensus among scientists, commercial interests, and the public regarding the status of shark populations is leading to an increasing need for the scientific community to provide information to help guide effective management and conservation actions. Experience from other marine vertebrate taxa suggests that public, political, and media pressures will play an increasingly important part in setting research, management, and conservation priorities. We examined the potential implications of nonscientific influences on shark research. In particular, we considered whether lethal research sampling of sharks is justified. Although lethal sampling comes at a cost to a population, especially for threatened species, the conservation benefits from well-designed studies provide essential data that cannot be collected currently in any other way. Methods that enable nonlethal collection of life-history data on sharks are being developed (e.g., use of blood samples to detect maturity), but in the near future they will not provide widespread or significant benefits. Development of these techniques needs to continue, as does the way in which scientists coordinate their use of material collected during lethal sampling. For almost half of the known shark species there are insufficient data to determine their population status; thus, there is an ongoing need for further collection of scientific data to ensure all shark populations have a future. Shark populations will benefit most when decisions about the use of lethal sampling are made on the basis of scientific evidence that is free from individual, political, public, and media pressures.
科学家、商业利益群体和公众对鲨鱼种群现状达成了普遍共识，这使得科学界越来越需要提供信息，以帮助指导有效的管理和保护行动。其他海洋脊椎动物类群的经验表明，公众、政治和媒体的压力将在确定研究、管理和保护优先事项方面发挥越来越重要的作用。我们研究了非科学因素对鲨鱼研究可能产生的影响。特别是，我们考虑了对鲨鱼进行致命性研究采样是否合理。虽然致命性采样对种群（尤其是受威胁物种）造成了损失，但精心设计的研究可以提供无法以其他方式收集的基本数据，从而带来保护效益。目前正在开发能够对鲨鱼进行非致命性收集生命史数据的方法（例如，使用血液样本来检测成熟度），但在不久的将来，这些方法不会带来广泛或重大的效益。需要继续开发这些技术，同时还需要协调科学家使用在致命性采样过程中收集的材料的方式。对于近一半的已知鲨鱼物种，没有足够的数据来确定其种群状况；因此，需要进一步收集科学数据，以确保所有鲨鱼种群都有未来。当基于不受个人、政治、公众和媒体压力影响的科学证据来做出关于使用致命性采样的决策时，鲨鱼种群将受益最大。
