Washington, United States (June 18) - Overfishing is driving coral reef sharks towards extinction, according to a global study out on Thursday that signals far greater peril to the marine predators than previously thought.
That matters to humans because the species act as managers of their marine ecosystems, maintaining delicately balanced food webs on which hundreds of millions of people rely.
The research, published in the journal Science, is the result of the Global FinPrint project, which collected more than 22,000 hours of video footage from reefs across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australasia and the Americas.
A team of more than 100 scientists found that five of the most common coral reef shark species -- grey reef, nurse, Caribbean reef, blacktip reef and whitetip reef -- declined by 70 to 60 percent.
White tip reef shark. -- Photo: Constance Halaveli, Maldives
The depletion data was derived from a computer model that estimated what shark numbers would have looked like without human pressures.
Sharks were entirely absent in 14 percent of reefs where they had been previously documented. Lead author Colin Simpfendorfer of the James Cook University and the University of Tasmania told AFP that prior to the study, coral reef sharks -- unlike their bigger cousins that dwell in deep oceans -- were not thought to be doing badly.
The findings should help update the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list, with more species qualifying for “endangered” status, an important step towards conservation action.
This story was produced by AFP.
