{"id":769848,"date":"2026-06-30T12:16:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/769848\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T12:16:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:16:18","slug":"the-guitarfish-is-threatened-with-extinction-by-demand-for-its-fins-a-scientist-is-turning-fishers-into-its-guardians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/769848\/","title":{"rendered":"The guitarfish is threatened with extinction by demand for its fins. A scientist is turning fishers into its guardians"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex\u2019s Perpetual Planet Initiative<\/a> has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.\n<\/p>\n

\n In the rough waters of western Ghana, a fisherman lifts a strange-looking, flat creature \u2014 half-shark, half-ray \u2014 out of his net.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s a guitarfish, a \u201cliving fossil\u201d whose ancestors swam the same Jurassic oceans as dinosaurs. Today, it\u2019s among the most threatened fish in the ocean \u2014 its fins sold for hundreds of dollars in Asian markets to make luxury soup, a trade pushing them toward extinction.\n <\/p>\n

\n The fisherman measures the animal, notes where he caught it, and slides it back into the waves, unharmed.\n <\/p>\n

\n Behind that small act is a decade of work by marine biologist Dr. Issah Seidu<\/a>, whose research is responsible for much of what Ghana knows about its sharks and rays.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThese species are silently going extinct without anybody knowing them,\u201d he told CNN, explaining that all four species of guitarfish in the country are critically endangered.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, as a university lecturer and founder of the nonprofit AquaLife Conservancy, Seidu and his team are raising awareness across communities and turning hundreds of fishermen into guardians of the same fish they used to catch \u2014 work that recently earned him a Whitley Award<\/a>, a prestigious international honor for grassroots conservationists.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Guitarfish are not sharks, but are a type of \u201crhino ray,\u201d a group of 68 species<\/a> worldwide, nearly three-quarters<\/a> of them threatened with extinction.\n <\/p>\n

\n In Ghana, larger rhino rays like the distinctly shaped sawfish and wedgefish are believed to be locally extinct<\/a>. Those left are four guitarfish species \u2014 the common, white-spotted, blackchin and spineback \u2014 which are the focus of Seidu\u2019s work. \u201cWe don\u2019t want guitarfish to suffer a similar fate,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Guitarfish are incredibly vulnerable<\/a> to overfishing, because they inhabit shallow waters, grow slowly and have few offspring. As mid-level predators, Seidu explains, they hold the food web together \u2014 keeping the species below them in check while acting as prey for large sharks; remove them and everything around them is at risk, from the small fish people eat to the health of the ocean itself.\n <\/p>\n

\n Once abundant and caught for food, guitarfish are now increasingly targeted by fishers for their fins, and because the ocean around them is running out of fish.\n <\/p>\n

\"Seidu<\/p>\n

\n For generations, coastal communities lived off sardinella, anchovies and mackerel, caught with traditional methods. In recent decades, industrial trawler fleets began operations in West Africa\u2019s rich fishing grounds. Often using banned nets that also catch juvenile fish before they can breed, trawlers are outcompeting small-scale fishers and pushing coastal fish populations to the brink of collapse<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Their profits rarely stay in Ghana. International nonprofit Environmental Justice Foundation found 90%<\/a> of these trawlers are owned by Chinese corporations, a \u201cshadow fleet\u201d operating under Ghanaian flags to dodge fees and fines. A Ghanaian law passed in 2025 aims to push trawlers farther offshore, but its value will depend on effective enforcement.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some trawlers also take part in an illegal trade locals call \u201csaiko<\/a>\u201d: under cover of darkness, they transfer tons of frozen fish \u2014 often juvenile and staple species artisanal fishers depend on \u2014 to smaller specialized boats that sell it back cheaply to the same communities. Many of those involved are former fishers who found more profit in saiko than their own dwindling catch.\n <\/p>\n

\n With small fish gone, many fishers turned to whatever catch still held value, including guitarfish, some resorting to fishing with dynamite and chemicals to make ends meet.\n <\/p>\n

\n Across Ghana, only the body and tail of the guitarfish is cooked. Its fins are dried and sold to traders throughout West Africa. \u201cIf you go to the fin market you have a price tag for each of these species,\u201d Seidu said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Most fins reach trade hubs in China. Some are sold as shark fins while the largest and rarest species are a premium category of their own, fetching hundreds of dollars a kilogram for the texture they give to shark fin soup. This culinary delicacy drives the multimillion-dollar<\/a> global fin trade \u2014 killing up to 100 million<\/a> sharks a year, including countless guitarfish.\n <\/p>\n

\"Seidu<\/p>\n

\n Unlike saiko, guitarfish trade is legal but regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Appendix II protection<\/a>, partly thanks to Seidu\u2019s work supporting their inclusion.\n <\/p>\n

\n But for the most vulnerable species, trade has remained high. \u201cIn future we are aiming to push it to Appendix I, which actually prohibits the exploitation of the species entirely,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Until then, his plan is to break the supply chain at its first link: the moment guitarfish are caught.\n <\/p>\n

Soap and snails<\/p>\n

\n A former fisherman himself, Seidu knew the fishers\u2019 livelihoods depended on the very animal he wanted to protect. In 2018, he began trying to gain their support.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf you want to convince them, you cannot tell them to stop catching these fish without giving them an alternative,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took me six months to be able to convince some of the fishermen to work with me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n They feared that conservation meant losing their income but Seidu\u2019s answer was to first put their knowledge to work \u2014 what he calls the \u201cfisher biologist model<\/a>.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Instead of treating fishers as the problem, AquaLife trains them as collaborators: in safe-release techniques for guitarfish that land in their nets by accident, and in collecting data and GPS-mapping the breeding and nursery grounds critical for the survival of the fish.\n <\/p>\n

\n The data will be used to map what Seidu hopes will become Ghana\u2019s first locally managed marine area, a community-run refuge where guitarfish, and other creatures from sharks to sea turtles, can recover.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Fante people of Ghana are considered among the continent\u2019s most skilled fishermen, traveling across West Africa\u2019s coasts, often targeting large catch<\/a> like guitarfish. By training migrant fishers like them, an overlooked<\/a> group in conservation plans, Seidu hopes the impact can spread across borders.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n For the long term, they encourage alternative livelihoods \u2014 from soap-making to farming edible snails \u2014 so fishers gradually depend less on the fragile ocean to make a living. Some now earn more than they did at sea.\n <\/p>\n

\n To date, 200 people are no longer catching guitarfish or keeping them as bycatch, Seidu said, adding that two communities decided to also ban destructive techniques like dynamite fishing, poisoning and undersized nets that catch everything in their path.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cLocal communities are not just beneficiaries of conservation,\u201d he remarked in his acceptance speech at the Whitley Award ceremony. \u201cThey are partners, decision-makers, and key to our success.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Seidu\u2019s collaborative model stood out to the judging panel, said Danni Parks, director of the Whitley Fund for Nature, who in an email to CNN praised his \u201cambitious and thoughtful approach to addressing the interconnected challenges of biodiversity loss and food security.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n For Seidu, saving the guitarfish will also depend on drawing attention and funding to this little-known sea creature. \u201cDespite being among the most threatened marine species globally, guitarfish largely remain invisible in research, policy and public awareness,\u201d Seidu said.\n <\/p>\n

\"Issah<\/p>\n

\n In May, he was in Sri Lanka for Sharks International<\/a> \u2014 the world\u2019s largest conference on sharks and rays \u2014 presenting his work and connecting with researchers from more than 80 countries who share a common goal: to protect these species without threatening local livelihoods.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe must have compassion for those whose lives depend on this,\u201d Seidu said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Across Brazil, India and Kenya, similar models are giving small-scale fishers another choice \u2014 incentivizing them to release sharks and rays and bringing them into the research process.\n <\/p>\n

\n To keep the work going, Seidu is getting the next generation on board. \u201cI\u2019m training many students, many early-career conservationists,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I know, in the future, there is hope for Africa.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-769848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}