News

Three years after a petition from conservation groups WildEarth Guardians and Friends of Animals to protect scalloped hammerhead sharks, the National Marine Fisheries Service has finally added this graceful predator to the U.S. Endangered Species List, joining the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in its assessment of the threats scalloped hammerheads face. The announcement comes several weeks after a similar petition to protect great hammerheads was denied.

Scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini) are the first sharks to be listed—an important milestone for sharks as the U.S. Endangered Species Act is a legal measure and as such, the new endangered listing is legally binding. By contrast, the IUCN’s Red List consists of scientific assessments which are not enforced by law.

In recent decades, populations of scalloped hammerheads have plummeted, with an estimated decline of over 95% in parts of the Atlantic Ocean within 30 years. Both overfishing and shark-finning are to blame, with hammerheads among the most commonly caught sharks for finning. Unfortunately, the new listing will have no impact on Asia’s devastating trade in shark fins, as the legislation only covers U.S. waters.

Of the nine recognized species in the family Sphyrnidae, which includes the hammerheads as well as the closely related bonnethead and winghead sharks, the scalloped hammerhead is one of the largest, reaching lengths of over 13 feet. Like the larger great hammerheads, scalloped hammerheads are found across the globe in temperate and tropical waters.

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