The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering listing the oceanic white-tip shark as threatened or endangered in the wake of population declines in the Western and Central Pacific, including Hawaii waters.

Comments from the public are being accepted through March 14.

The oceanic white-tip shark was at one time among the most common sharks, but the population has decreased significantly, according to the nonprofit group Defenders of Wildlife, which filed the petition for protected species designation Sept. 21.

The group attributes the decline to commercial fishing — including the demands of the shark fin trade.

“What we’re doing is we’re killing them before they can reproduce,” Jay Tutchton, senior staff attorney for Washington, D.C.-based Defenders of Wildlife, said by telephone. “That’s just incredibly shortsighted.”

Tutchton said the oceanic white-tip sharks do not breed fast enough to compensate for vast overfishing of the species — a decline of more than 90 percent in the last 15 years.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission said its initial assessment of the species, in August 2012, concluded that overfishing has been occurring. The commission said spawning has decreased and the mortality of the oceanic white-tip has increased.

“The greatest impact on the stock is attributed to catch from the longline fishery, with lesser impacts from target online activities and purse seining,” the commission said in its report.

The oceanic white-tip shark, not to be confused with white-tip reef sharks, is regarded as a desirable species because its fins are used to make soup and medicine.

Shark finning and the sale or distribution of shark fins has been banned in Hawaii waters since 2000, and about nine other states have similar laws, according to the Shark Stewards organization’s website.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said it does not have a global estimate on the number of oceanic white-tip sharks, scientifically known as Carchahinus longimanus. But according to one study, there are an estimated 200,000 in the Western and Central Pacific, and the numbers are dwindling.

NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Chelsey Young said a number of regional studies suggest oceanic white-tips have experienced declines wherever they are found.

“However, we are still in the very beginning stages of collecting information regarding abundance trends of the species,” she said.

Hawaii resident Sean Martin, who owns longline fishing boats, said based on what he’s heard, his fishing people don’t have much interaction with oceanic white-tip sharks.

“It’s not a common event,” Martin said.

The public comments are the first step in a review process expected to take about two years. Comments on the proposal may be lodged at www.regulations.gov/#!docket Detail;D=NOAA-NMFS-2015-0152 or mailed to the Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910.