QuotePity for a predator: 100 million sharks die each year, conservationists say
Aggressive overfishing threatens to push some shark species to extinction, and a new study puts annual shark deaths at 100 million.
"Our analysis shows that about one in 15 sharks gets killed by fisheries every year," study leader Boris Worm, a professor of biology at Canada's Dalhousie University, said in a statement. "With an increasing demand for their fins, sharks are more vulnerable today than ever before."
Based on available data for shark deaths and estimates of unreported illegal catches, the researchers estimated that 100 million sharks were killed in 2000 and 97 million in 2010. But since scientists lack sufficient data on shark catches, they say the real number of annual shark deaths could possibly be between 63 million and 273 million.
Sharks are fished for their meat, liver oil, cartilage and valuable fins, which are hacked off, often from live sharks, to be used in shark fin soup, an ancient and prized delicacy in East Asia. Since sharks have slow growth and reproductive rates, it can be tough for their populations to bounce back from big losses.
Conservationists say the depletion of shark populations is concerning because as apex predators, they help balance ecosystems in the world's oceans.
"In working with tiger sharks, we've seen that if we don't have enough of these predators around, it causes cascading changes in the ecosystem, that trickle all the way down to marine plants," said study researcher Mike Heithaus, a Florida International University biologist.
On March 3, hundreds of delegates from 177 different countries will descend on Bangkok for the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. On the agenda will be increased trade protection for five species of sharks — the oceanic whitetip, porbeagle and three types of hammerheads — which are hunted for their fins.
"A simple vote 'yes' to support their listing could turn things around for some of the world's most threatened shark species," Elizabeth Wilson, manager of global shark conservation at the Pew Charitable Trusts' environmental organization, said in a statement. "Countries should seize this opportunity to protect these top predators from extinction."
Sharks have a PR problem that might be hurting their chances of survival. A study out last year found that a majority of the media coverage they get involves shark attacks on humans, which doesn't reflect how rare these scary encounters are. In 2012, there were 80 confirmed shark attacks worldwide, but only seven of them were deadly, according to the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File.
The new research was detailed online in the journal Marine Policy.
The nuclear exchange of the Sino-US War of 2028 simply can't come soon enough.
I hardly want to see our citizens dying for sharks.
It'll just be #256,238 on the list, that's all.
They just need to tie frickin laser beams to their heads! :nelson:
The ocean's a big fucking place, I doubt we could hunt sharks to extinction even if that was the goal.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F24.media.tumblr.com%2Fff1e41fc3a45fa8f462b60148711800f%2Ftumblr_misg1pMGwL1s4m43ho1_500.png&hash=564831a122fe9103fc7ded1f7f529044fca46ff7)
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 02, 2013, 09:57:29 PM
The nuclear exchange of the Sino-US War of 2028 simply can't come soon enough.
Might want to move the timetable up a bit. We mgiht not be able to afford ICBMs and SSBNs by 2028.
I didn't know there even that many sharks in the world.
How many fish are killed?
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 03, 2013, 12:21:54 AM
The ocean's a big fucking place, I doubt we could hunt sharks to extinction even if that was the goal.
I suppose whales and sea otters never had anything to worry about either.
Whales and sea otters have to come up for air.
That's a lot of sharks to be around, let alone to kill! It does seem a concern though, losing so many predators, top of the food chain. The article doesn't say if there are any fishing regs on taking numbers sharks. I assume there are laws but not so much for the countries that take them for fins and such.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 03, 2013, 02:10:54 AM
I didn't know there even that many sharks in the world.
There are a lot of smaller shark types as well, not just the big famous ones.
It seems like if sharks died out, we could offset the imbalance to the ecosystem by increasing fishing quotas. :hmm:
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 03, 2013, 12:21:54 AM
The ocean's a big fucking place, I doubt we could hunt sharks to extinction even if that was the goal.
It's doable. The power of mankind to kill is unmatched on the Earth.
Quote from: Neil on March 03, 2013, 08:47:09 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 03, 2013, 12:21:54 AM
The ocean's a big fucking place, I doubt we could hunt sharks to extinction even if that was the goal.
It's doable. The power of mankind to kill is unmatched on the Earth.
Some would learn to avoid the surface and the coast, so we'd never find them all.
Sharks don't learn very well. They're fish. They're no smarter than the bluefin tuna, and those will be gone in a few years.
Well, maybe "learn" isn't the right word, but I think they'd develop an instinct to avoid the surface/shallow water areas. Probably some sharks already have this.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 04, 2013, 12:31:07 AM
Well, maybe "learn" isn't the right word, but I think they'd develop an instinct to avoid the surface/shallow water areas. Probably some sharks already have this.
And how quickly, exactly, are they supposed to learn this, what with their food sources found at the surface?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 04, 2013, 07:46:32 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 04, 2013, 12:31:07 AM
Well, maybe "learn" isn't the right word, but I think they'd develop an instinct to avoid the surface/shallow water areas. Probably some sharks already have this.
And how quickly, exactly, are they supposed to learn this, what with their food sources found at the surface?
Well, you know what they say--1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean is a good start.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 04, 2013, 12:31:07 AM
Well, maybe "learn" isn't the right word, but I think they'd develop an instinct to avoid the surface/shallow water areas. Probably some sharks already have this.
Aren't there some species of shark that already avoid the coastal areas and live exclusively in the open ocean?
Have any maritime species actually been hunted to extinction by man? I know there's lots that are claimed to be threatened, but that could just mean they're no longer hanging out in the places we're looking.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 05, 2013, 11:20:46 AM
Have any maritime species actually been hunted to extinction by man? I know there's lots that are claimed to be threatened, but that could just mean they're no longer hanging out in the places we're looking.
Even the most rudimentary google search will give you a wealth of information on the confirmed extinctions and also the wave of feared extinctions that scientists are predicting.
Stellar's Sea Cow comes to mind.
Extinct North American Animals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_of_North_America)
Fish:
QuoteAlberca silverside
Longjaw cisco
Deepwater cisco
Lake Ontario kiyi
Blackfin cisco
Yellowfin cutthroat trout
Alvord cutthroat trout
Silver trout
Maravillas red shiner
Independence Valley tui chub
Thicktail chub
Pahranagat spinedace
Phantom shiner
Las Vegas dace
Grass Valley speckled dace
Clear Lake splittail
Oncorhynchus rastrosus
Snake River sucker
Harelip sucker
Tecopa pupfish
Shoshone pupfish
Raycraft Ranch killifish
Pahrump Ranch killifish
Ash Meadows killifish
Amistad gambusia
San Marcos gambusia
Blue walleye
Maryland darter
Utah Lake sculpin
Banff longnose dace