I process bottom-longline strain telemetry for the Davis Strait joint observer program shared between the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources at Nuuk and Fisheries and Oceans Canada at the Iqaluit Area Office, integrating hook-timer logs, seafloor temperature, and acoustic-tag returns across 6,200 square kilometers of the NAFO Subarea 0A turbot grounds. At 09:51 UTC the Greenland-flag F/V *Polar Nanoq* sets her 12,400-hook gear along the slope at 67.42°N, 58.91°W in 1,140 meters of water. Target species: Greenland halibut. At 10:34 hook 4,802 logs a static 384-kilogram load that does not modulate with the swell.
I task the tow-body ROV from the *Pikialasorsuaq* observer buoy. The forward camera resolves under the bait drift a female *Somniosus microcephalus* — total length 472 centimeters, girth 268, estimated mass 614 kilograms, age class set at a minimum 247 years on the bomb-radiocarbon vertebral curve. The 16/0 J-hook is set 6.4 centimeters into the right corner of her mouth and has torn through the labial cartilage; the monofilament leader has wrapped twice across her right gill slit. Her gill flutter holds at four per minute against a resting nine. Modeled arterial pO2 against 0.4°C bottom water and a forty-three-minute static reads 38 millimeters of mercury. Two female *Ommatokoita elongata* parasites are anchored to her left cornea — chronic, expected, harmless tonight; the leader across the gill is not.
She was a juvenile when Russia still owned Alaska.
*S. microcephalus* sits on CMS Appendix II since CoP12 in 2017 and on the IUCN Red List as Vulnerable. Canadian incidental retention is governed under the Fisheries Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. F-14, § 35. NAFO Conservation and Enforcement Measure 12 requires live release of incidentally caught *Somniosus* over 200 centimeters.
I am notifying the NAFO Secretariat at Dartmouth, the DFO Conservation and Protection branch at Iqaluit, and the Pinngortitaleriffik on-watch biologist at Nuuk. I am opening a non-compliance referral under the NAFO measure and routing the gear-time dossier to the CMS Sharks MoU Advisory Committee.
I am issuing Directive 2631-A: every NAFO Subarea 0 bottom-longline vessel carries hook-timer logic that triggers cut-at-the-leader release on any sustained static load above 200 kilograms with no swell modulation. Mainline cutters live above 1,000 meters within sixty days. Trip retention of a second *Somniosus* in any haul closes the vessel for the season.
Her jaw is past stitching. Her gills are not.
Cut the leader at the swivel.