November 11, 2022 — Shark populations in the high seas have fallen by 71% since 1970, researchers have found. The main cause is overfishing, which has put three-quarters of these species at risk of extinction.
“It’s the first big picture” of the decline in sharks, says Nuno Queiroz, a marine ecologist at the Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources who was not involved with the research. The new global perspective, he says, “gives you an idea how pervasive the fishing has been.”
Humans have hunted sharks for centuries for their meat and fins. A related group of fish, the rays, are caught for their gills, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Studies have identified severe regional declines of specific species, such as the loss of scalloped hammerhead sharks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean, but no one had compiled trends in all oceans.