Red List: Many sharks closer to extinction than feared due to overfishing
Human appetites are pushing Makos and other sharks to the brink of extinction. A 2013 peer-review study estimated that upward of 100 million sharks are fished every year to satisfy a market for their fins, meat, and liver oil.
MARLOWE HOOD: ‘Human appetites are pushing makos and other iconic sharks to the brink of extinction, scientists warned in a new assessment of the apex predator’s conservation status. Seventeen of 58 species evaluated were classified as facing extinction, the Shark Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation (IUCN) said late Thursday in an update of the Red List of threatened animals and plants… A 2013 peer-review study estimated that upward of 100 million sharks are fished every year to satisfy a market for their fins, meat, and liver oil.
“Our results are alarming,” said Nicholas Dulvy, who chairs the grouping of 174 experts from 55 countries. “The sharks that are especially slow-growing, sought-after and unprotected from overfishing tend to be the most threatened”. That category includes the shortfin mako, whose cruising speed of 40 km/h (25 mph)—punctuated by bursts of more than 70 km/h—makes it the fastest of all sharks. Along with its longfin cousin, the two makos are highly prized for their flesh and fins, considered a delicacy in Chinese and other Asian culinary traditions. “Today, one of the biggest shark fisheries on the high seas is the mako,” Dulvy told AFP. “It is also one of the least protected”…
In light of its new findings, the Shark Specialist Group is calling for “immediate national and international fishing limits, including complete bans on landing those species assessed as ‘endangered’ or ‘critically endangered’,” said Sonja Fordham, deputy chair of the group and an officer at The Ocean Foundation. Sharks have lorded over the world’s oceans for some 400 million years, playing a critical role in global food chains. But the top-level predators have proven especially vulnerable to human predation: they grow slowly, become sexually mature relatively late in life, and produce few offspring’. SOURCE…
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