Overfishing drives over one-third of all sharks andrays toward a global extinction crisis
Dulvy, N.K., Pacoureau, N., Rigby, C.L., Pollom, R.A., Jabado, R.W., Ebert, D.A., Finucci, B., Pollock, C.M., Cheok, J., Derrick, D.H., Herman, K.B., Sherman, C.S., VanderWright, W.J., Lawson, J.M., Walls, R.H.L., Carlson, J.K., Charvet, P., Bineesh, K.K., Fernando, D., Ralph, G.M., Matsushiba, J.H., Hilton-Taylor, C., Fordham, S.V. and Simpfendorfer, C.A. 2021. Overfishing drives over one-third of all sharks and rays toward a global extinction crisis. Current Biology 31: 1-15 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.06.
This paper presents the results of the 2021 reassessments of the world's sharks and rays, revealing that more than one-third (37.5%) of chondrichthyans are estimated to be threatened, with much of this change resulting from new information. Three species are Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct), representing possibly the first global marine fish extinctions due to overfishing. Consequently, the chondrichthyan extinction rate is potentially 25 extinctions per million species years, comparable to that of terrestrial vertebrates. Overfishing is the universal threat affecting all 391 threatened species and is the sole threat for 67.3% of species and interacts with three other threats for the remaining third: loss and degradation of habitat (31.2% of threatened species), climate change(10.2%), and pollution (6.9%). Species are disproportionately threatened in tropical and subtropical coastal waters.
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