The limited knowledge of the the current status of shark populations and level of fishing effort in the Mediterranean are the two biggest conservation and management issues. Moreover, there is a complete lack of suitable planning aimed at the quantification of the degree of vulnerability of the resource. Such planning should be defined through specific studies on fishing effort, commercial landings, biological parameters and species identification.

The main objective should be the efficient monitoring of elasmobranch catch, in particular in multispecific fisheries where sharks constitute an important fraction of the bycatch.It is expected that where countries enforce their own Action Plans, guaranteed systematic assessments of shark catch should be carried out.

Country specific information can be found here.