1. What are sharks?
There are 1,044 described Chondrichthyan species around the world - this includes sharks, rays, skates and chimaeras. Of those there are 468 species of sharks. A new species of chondrichthyan is discovered on average every two weeks.

Many reports (for example, reports written by our organisation) use the term sharks to mean all Chondricthyan species - we define this at the beginning of our reports, whereas others talk about sharks as just being the sharks (Elasmobranchs). Chondrichthyes are Chimariformes (chimaeras) + elasmobranchii (elasmobranchs) + batoideia (batoids). Elasmobranchs are largely sharks and batoids are largely rays, but also include guitarfishes, sawfishes and coldwater skates. It is important to note that it is not just sharks that are targeted by fisheries for meat or for fins - rays are increasingly becoming targets of these fisheries.

2.     Which species of shark are targetted for their fins?
Targetting is a difficult concept. Most sharks and rays are caught alongside fishing operations for other fish species, or are caught in indiscriminate fishing grears (longlines, trawls). So most species are bycatch, but often a valuable bycatch. The reasons sharks decline is that the are more sensitive to fishing than the species that are targeted. Hence it is inevitable that sharks decline even if the target species is sustainably fished. It is hard to say which species are taken by the finning industry - there are some scientific papers that have carried out surveys (genetic or market surveys) that have looked at species for sale but this has only been in certain markets in certain areas of the world.

3. Have any species of shark become extinct through the impacts of fishing?
No sharks, to our knowledge have become extinct globally due to industrial scale fishing. However, there are some populations of species that have become locally extinct, for example see Dulvy et al. 2003; Dulvy and Forrest 2009. 

4. How does the IUCN Classifications scheme work?
The IUCN Red List uses the following classifications (must be capitalised) to describe the threat status of a species: Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable - these three are the categories people talk about when they say a species is 'threatened' (not capitalised). The other three classifications are: Near Threatened, Least Concern and Data Deficient. These classifications follow strict IUCN Red List guidelines – rate of population decline,  numbers in the wild, size of area that they are present in, threats that they face.

Nearly half of all chondrichthyan species are Data Deficient - we don't have enough information on them to make a classification. However, there is quite a large chance that these species are threatened to some degree because we have only ever found one specimen of many of them.

Threat status of Chondrichthyans
CR - 25 species
EN - 42 spp
VU - 114 spp
NT - 134 spp
LC - 241 spp
DD - 488 spp

Threat status of Sharks - There are 468 species of shark.
CR - 11 spp
EN - 15 spp
VU - 48 spp
NT - 69 spp
LC - 115 spp
DD - 210 spp

The most threatened Chondrichthyan species are the Critically Endangered species.The Critically Endangered species can be found in the CR Tab in this spreadsheet. Those species that are most vulnerable to becoming 'threatened' (CR, EN or VU) are the NT (Near Threatened species).