- A third of the world’s sharks, rays and chimaeras are threatened with extinction, and their numbers have dwindled since 1970, finds a new IUCN report and a study.
- Overfishing, mostly as bycatch, is the biggest threat to these marine fish, halving their populations in five decades, followed by the international trade in shark parts, habitat degradation and pollution.
- Scientists call for immediate actions to prevent extinction, regulate trade and manage shark fisheries to promote sustainability.
Evolution has perfected the world’s sharks and rays for more than 420 million years. Unlike the ammonites or pterosaurs that they once shared the oceans with, sharks and rays persevered through five mass extinctions. But now, their resilience has been put to test by a human folly: overfishing. In 2023, the Java stingaree (Urolophus javanicus) became the first marine fish on record to have gone extinct because of humans. If our current fishing trends continue, it won’t be the last, scientists warn in a recently published report and a study.
The new IUCN report, put together by more than 350 experts from more than 100 countries, finds that overfishing is the biggest threat to the world’s 1,266 species of sharks, rays and chimaeras (a distantly related deep-sea order of fish often called “ghost sharks”). Building on previous population assessments and new knowledge gained in the past two decades, the IUCN report identifies global and local threats to sharks and rays found in 158 countries with a coastline.
“The report is a call for action,” said report lead author Rima Jabado, who chairs the Shark Specialist Group at the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. “We know so much more [about sharks and rays] than we used to 20 years ago but it’s not all beautiful and rosy … and we need to be doing something about it.”
The report finds Indonesia, Spain and India top the world’s shark-fishing countries, followed by Mexico and the U.S. While only a quarter of global shark species are caught by fishers, mostly as bycatch, those like rhino rays (order Rhinopristiformes), whiprays (genus Himantura), angel sharks (genus Squatina) and gulper sharks (Centrophorus granulosus) have seen massive declines in their numbers. The report also highlights the increase in global shark part trade and recommends local, country-level actions to conserve these ancient predators.
For instance, the report finds that in Indonesia, rays make up more than 60% of the total catch of sharks and rays. Shark fins are the most valuable product, and more than half of Indonesia’s catch is exported to China and Taiwan. The report recommends Indonesia improve the quality of catch and trade data to better monitor shark and ray populations in its waters.
Andrea Pauly, coordinator of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Sharks, an international conservation agreement of migratory sharks,