MANTA rays and sharks in Sabah are again falling victim to human greed. 

New pictures captured by tourists at a fishing village near diving-haven Mabul, off Semporna, showed the marine life being cut into pieces. 

The fishing village had also gone viral in July 2016 when photos of several sharks being harvested was reported by local media. 

A British tourist, who chose to remain anonymous, said: “There were about two manta rays, 13 devil rays and one shark being landed, with six fishermen harvesting their flesh,” he said. 

While there is no law in Malaysia forbidding fishermen from selling shark meat, Sabah has called for a total ban on shark and ray fishing, hunting and finning from as far back as 2015.
However, the proposal was shot down by Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek as he said sharks were not being hunted commercially. 

In dismissing Sabah’s call to amend the Fisheries Act to ban shark hunting and finning in the country, Shabery Cheek had said that sharks were only “accidentally caught” by fishermen “when they enter nets along with other fishes”.

Of 155 species of sharks and rays, only the whale shark and all rays from the pristidae family or sawfish are categorised as threatened species under the Fisheries (Control of Endangered Species of Fish) Regulations 1999 and Fisheries Act 1985. 

Sabah has since set up shark sanctuaries under State Park Enactment in all of its eight state marine parks. However, they only cover 8% of the state’s waters.  

Local marine life activist group, Sabah Sharks Protection Association, said it would issue a statement soon over the photos. – February 17, 2018.