and longlines are an unspecific form of fishing. Longlines intended for other species can easily catch gulper sharks. When a fish species other than the intended catch is caught, it is called bycatch. Although bycatch is not always a significant cause of loss to population size, it highlights the unpredictable nature of deepwater fish exploitation. Rules and regulations regarding bycatch treatment are difficult to enforce by the nature of the bycatch being unintentional. Bycatch is often not treated as a serious issue until a species has declined to a point where small bycatch has a large effect, so data on the effect of bycatch on gulper populations is not abundant. Gulper shark populations have dropped as much as 80% in some areas, so bycatch is only recently becoming a big issue for them. Consumables Fins and meat are generally taken from gulper sharks, but it is of particular interest because of the quantity of liver oil it contains: compared to similar species such as the dogfish shark, the gulper has a larger liver with more oil. Traditionally, shark oil is a folk remedy for a variety of ailments, but also has been shown to contain compounds of contemporary medicinal value, most notable squalene, although the compound can also be extracted from plants. This compound makes the liver of the gulper shark very valuable and is a large part of gulper-specific fishing. Ecology Life history The life history of an organism describes the timing of important events for the typical individual of a species. The life history of the gulper shark shows that vulnerability to harvesting is inherent in its biology. The slow rate of gulper growth and development leads to a life strategy that is more centered on competition with one another than escaping predation, especially from humans. This is demonstrated from even the earliest part of an individual gulper's life history where it consumes other fertilized eggs inside its parent's body. A long gestation period, later maturity, and long lifespan all contribute to a K-selected tendency that favors intraspecific competition, or competition with similar species, over survival defenses having to do with predation. Harvesting is a form of predation that slow, invested reproduction does not easily alleviate. The long gestation, low fecundity, and breaks in individual reproduction lead to slow repopulation ability. Slow reproduction is a part of the species biology, and cannot be changed in one generation based