解放军文职招聘考试鲨鱼和蝠鲼获国际保护(2/2)

 Sant said that sharks are "particularly vulnerable to overexploitation." "They live many years. They have few young. They're an important part of the ecosystem because they sit at the top of major predators in the ecosystem. So when you start removing too many of these top order predators you get an imbalance to the ecosystem. When we start removing too many of, any of these individual sharks we've seen huge crashes in their populations. In Thailand there were discussions about some of these populations being reduced by over 90%." Conservationists say many times when sharks are caught, they have their fins cut off and are then thrown back into the sea to die. The manta rays are prized for their gills, which are also used as a food delicacy. Proposals to protect sharks were first introduced at a 1994 CITES meeting in the U.S. "I must say though it's a bit of bittersweet win today. You know, it's sad that we've had to get to the point where some of these shark populations have been reduced to such level that we then only give attention to them." If final approval is given, the sharks and rays would be included under Appendix II of CITES. It is not a total ban. Appendix II does allow commercial trade. But countries involved in such trade must do two things. They have to prove that the sharks and rays were: one, legally caught and, two, sustainably caught. "It means now that these shark populations will undergo much great scrutiny before they're allowed to be traded internationally." The CITES meeting also gave preliminary approval to giving greater protection to the freshwater sawfish.

桑特说，鲨鱼在“过度开发的威胁之下是十分脆弱”的。“鲨鱼的寿命很长，并且幼鲨的数量非常少。作为生态系统中站在食肉动物顶端的生物，鲨鱼对整个生态系统来说至关重要。所以我们过多的捕杀这些顶级食肉动物时，生态系统就开始失衡。当我们开始捕杀任何一个群体的鲨鱼物种，整个鲨鱼群体都会遭受重创。在泰国，你能听到一些议论说某些种类的鲨鱼数量已经减少了百分之九十多。”生态环保人士多次告诉公众（这些残酷的捕杀过程）：鲨鱼被捕后，就被切去鱼鳍，然后又被扔回海里等待死亡来临。不仅是鲨鱼鳍，蝠鲼的鱼鳃也成为了美味佳肴，蝠鲼也因此惹来杀身之祸，身价倍增。1994年，在美国召开的CITES会议首次提出了保护鲨鱼的议题。“我不得不说，虽然现在鲨鱼保护工作已经取得一些成效，但我们直到鲨鱼的数量锐减到这种程度了才开始关注鲨鱼的保护问题，真是略显悲哀啊。”

如果保护提案获得了最终批准，那么鲨鱼和蝠鲼都将被归入CITES的附录二中。对附录二中的生物，CITES并不完全禁止捕杀或交易，还是允许对它们进行商业贸易的。但进行此类贸易的国家必须做到以下两点：一、必须保证鲨鱼和蝠鲼是合法捕获的；二、必须控制捕杀数量以保证可持续发展。“这意味着这些鲨鱼必须经过严格的审查才能进行国际贸易。”

CITES会议也对给予淡水锯鳐更多保护做出了初步批准。