La población mundial de tiburones y rayas se desplomó más del 70% ecoportal.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ecoportal.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Last modified on Sun 31 Jan 2021 01.11 EST
About four years ago, Colin Simpfendorfer was diving on reefs in Indonesia’s picture-perfect Raja Ampat region when he noticed the distinct absence of something.
“It’s a beautiful place to dive. We would have expected to see grey reef sharks and white tips,” says the veteran scientist. “But you don’t see sharks for days on end.”
Simpfendorfer, an adjunct professor at Queensland’s James Cook University and a global authority on sharks and rays, has been researching the marine animals since the mid-1980s.
Last week, a global team of shark researchers, including Simpfendorfer, found sharks and rays that live in the open ocean have been dwindling at an alarming rate.
Will sharks survive? Scientists fear for ocean s apex predators without more protection msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Overfishing is causing shark and ray populations to plummet
It s an apolcayptic scenario, but researchers say it s still possible to reverse the trend with proper policies
Populations of oceanic sharks and rays have crashed by more than 70% over the past half a century, and it’s our fault. The decline is mostly owed to overfishing, a new study shows but conservation policies can help.
Image credit: Wikipedia Commons
The Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed half of the world’s oceanic shark species as engendered or critically threatened. The giant manta ray is also endangered. Yet, this doesn’t seem to be nearly enough to protect these creatures.