Here's Why the WWF is Buying a Licence to Hunt Sharks on the Great Barrier Reef

Unsurprisingly, the conservationists at the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) love sharks. It's why they are applying for a licence to kill them. Right now, the group is trying to raise the $100,000 they need to pay for a Great Barrier Reef shark fishing permit, which would technically allow them to net sharks anywhere along the reef. But hey have no plans to catch sharks. Very few licences are available, so by buying one and then refusing to use it, they'll be passively preventing others from catching sharks.

WWF Australia's conservation director Gilly Llewellyn told VICE that the licence would give the organisation access to a net, only five of which can be used on the entire reef.

"A licence to operate one of those nets came on the open market," he said. "It wasn't actually being used, but someone could buy it, and could take it fishing again, and we didn't want that to happen."

However, WWF will need a lot of public support to raise the $100,000 they need to buy the licence. "In 24 hours we've had a massive response from the public. I think this will strike a chord with a lot of people," Llewellyn said. "We've had some major donors who have made some generous pledges."

The licence the conservation group plans to buy has only just been put up for sale, and has not been used for shark fishing since 2004. But between 1993 and 2004, it allowed its owner to net 10,000 sharks every year.

New figures released by Queensland Fisheries last year revealed that between 2014 and 2015, the number of sharks caught on the Great Barrier Reef increased at a rate of 80 percent. Last year, nets trapped approximately 100,000 reef sharks, also ensnaring dugongs, sea turtles, and dolphins.

Among the victims of shark fishing are native hammerhead sharks, which are listed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Hammerhead shark populations on the Great Barrier Reef are thought to have declined by as much as 66 percent since the 1960s.

A recent study by the Australian Institute of Marine Science found that overfishing of sharks is a worldwide problem, and that shark fishing upon the Great Barrier Reef has made it even more vulnerable to coral bleaching—an issue that has decimated its northern end in recent months.

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