Thresher sharks are oceanic, strong swimming sharks occupying tropical and temperate seas. These sharks are easily recognized by its long tail, which is used to stunt their preys. Thresher shark, comprises three species within the family Alopiidae; the common thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus), bigeye thresher shark (Alopias supercilliosus), and pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus). The pelagic thresher shark has the smallest distribution range of the  three, being restricted to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, including Indonesia waters.

 

According to the last assessment of the IUCN Red List of threatened species, pelagic thresher sharks’ populations are overexploited leading to a depletion of the global population. The pelagic thresher shark is not usually targeted by fisheries, however when caught as by-catch they are retained as their meat, fins and skin are consumed. Although their fins do not reach a high value in the shark fin market, thresher species collectively accounted for 2.3% of identified fins in the Hong Kong market, representing between 0.4 and 9.3 million individual threshers. 

 

Management of stocks is hindered in many places due to the lack of proper monitoring data on the species level, Thresher Shark Conservation in Aceh is the first project specifically by design to gather information regarding pelagic thresher shark fisheries and its importance for the local community in Aceh Indonesia. This project supported by ZSL EDGE of Existence, WCS Indonesia Program and Global Fishing Watch Indonesia. Our objective is to characterise both the industrial by-catch and local-scale fisheries targeting thresher sharks in the Aceh province through daily landing surveys in Banda Aceh and Blang Pidie to help authorities in developing a location-specific conservation plan to improve the status of this species.