MAN'S IGNORANCE PUTS SHARK SPECIES INTO DIRE STRAITS.

Byline: John H. Cushman Jr. The New York Times

One of mankind's largest and least regulated harvests of creatures from the wild is ravaging many of the world's shark species, but nascent international efforts to protect the species are hampered by a deep ignorance, not only about how many are killed but also about how they live and what they need to survive.

``Little effort has been made to collect even the most basic kinds of information, such as numbers of sharks caught and discarded, necessary for meeting even minimal standards of management of fisheries affecting sharks,'' says a report on the species issued last week by the Center for Marine Conservation, an environmental advocacy group based in Washington.

The report says little is known about the life history and other characteristics of most shark species, like growth rates, reproductive potential, distribution, movements and interactions with other species.

Other recent studies echo the complaint. Now that demand and prices for shark are rising worldwide, they say, the low priority placed on shark research and management is a relic of the past.

Long relegated to second-class status, shark fishing is expanding worldwide, rising in prominence as other fish for the table become scarcer and as a worldwide trade in shark fins and other exotic shark products grows rapidly.

The reports of landings, the amount of fish brought to shore, of sharks and related species, like skates and rays, together called elasmobranchs, grew from about 220,000 tons in 1947 to more than 800,000 tons in 1994, according to sketchy data collected by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. The actual total catch is thought to be at least twice that much because there is substantial underreporting of how many sharks are caught incidentally by people who are fishing for other species in commercial, recreational and subsistence fishing.

The United States is one of the few countries to have imposed major controls on shark fishing. Its recent proposals to tighten restrictions even further this year are being welcomed by conservation groups but have provoked dissent from the fishing industry.

The proposed rule would reduce the annual quota for large coastal sharks taken in Eastern United States waters by 50 percent, to a little more than 1,400 tons, while also imposing a quota of 1,940 tons on small coastal sharks, about a third less than the current catch. Five species would be put off-limits altogether.

But in comments to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is expected to issue a final rule within weeks, the fishing industry has argued that the tightening is premature because populations of these sharks may have already stabilized or even begun to recover since quotas and other controls were first imposed in 1993.

``Patience is truly a virtue,'' said John J. Hoey, a shark scientist at the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group, ``and so is honestly describing the difficult position we are in, in terms of scientifically evaluating what has happened and what else needs to be done to enhance management and our understanding of current conditions.''

The debate over the American shark controls surely would be amplified if any strong measures were proposed to control fishing for these species worldwide.

According to documents drafted by the United States for consideration by the various world bodies studying the issue, only 10 of the countries that report shark landings make any attempt to manage their fisheries, and only four countries have detailed management plans for shark fishing.