ACHILLING ASSESSMENT of the fate of the world’s pelagic sharks and rays has just been published - and their sharp decline through overfishing has been devastating enough for one of the contributing authors to declare their situation “the end of the line”.
The Global Shark Trends Project (GSTP) study, published in Nature, confirms fears that high levels of population decline - 71% over the past 50 years - are happening on a worldwide scale.
The analysis of international research was carried out by the Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Shark Specialist Group, Simon Fraser University, James Cook University and the Georgia Aquarium supported by the Shark Conservation Fund.