A hammerhead shark less than one meter long swims frantically in a plastic container aboard a boat in the Sanquianga National Natural Park, off Colombia’s Pacific coast. It is a delicate female Sphyrna corona, the world’s smallest hammerhead species, and goes by the local name cornuda amarilla — yellow hammerhead — because of the color of its fins and the edges of its splendid curved head, which is full of sensors to perceive the movement of its prey.
Marine biologist Diego Cardeñosa of Florida International University, along with local fishermen, has just captured the shark and implanted it with an acoustic marker before quickly returning it to the murky waters. A series of receivers will help to track its movements for a year, to map the coordinates of its habitat — valuable information for its protection.
That hammerhead is far from the only shark species that keeps the Colombian biologist busy. Cardeñosa’s mission is to build scientific knowledge to support shark conservation, either by locating the areas where the creatures live or by identifying, with genetic tests, the species that are traded in the world’s main shark markets.
Sharks are under threat for several reasons. The demand for their fins to supply the mainly Asian market (see box) is a very lucrative business: Between 2012 and 2019, it generated $1.5 billion. This, plus their inclusion in bycatch — fish caught unintentionally in the fishing industry — as well as the growing market for shark meat, leads to the death of millions every year. In 2019 alone the estimated total killed was at least 80 million sharks, 25 million of which were endangered species. In fact, in the Hong Kong market alone, a major trading spot for shark fins, two-thirds of the shark species sold there are at risk of extinction, according to a 2022 study led by Cardeñosa and molecular ecologist Demian Chapman, director of the shark and ray conservation program at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.
