Region Update | Indian Ocean
Description of a new species of skate hitherto known only from egg cases described over 100 years ago
Bathyraja arctowskii is an exceptional case in skate taxonomy as it was named by Dollo in 1904 based only on three empty egg capsules of tiny size from off the Antarctic Peninsula. The species as such remained undescribed for more than 100 years. The reason was the lack of specimens that could be assigned to Dollo's small egg capsules.
An online meeting of the Working Group on Recreational Fishing (WGRF) was held on 25 and 26 of February 2021. The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) coordinated the meeting. The Working Group’s main objective is to fill the main data gaps in this activity and produce helpful advice to support the sustainable management of recreational fisheries from an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries perspective.
Sawfishes have become one of the rarest groups of marine animals with many populations at high risk of extinction. Three species of sawfishes, i.e. Narrow (Anoxypristis cuspidata), Largetooth tooth (Pristis pristis) and Green (Pristis zijsron), are known from Pakistan. Information about sawfishes in Pakistan is available through the work efforts of Moazzam and Osmany (2014).
A first global study published in Nature found reef sharks were absent on almost 20% of the 371 coral reefs sampled in 58 nations across the world. The study provides conclusive evidence of a severe decline in reef sharks on a global scale which is directly linked to fishing, but confirms protected areas and fishing gear restrictions are effective in maintaining healthy reef shark populations. The results were based on 15,165 hours of baited remote underwater video (BRUV) footage around the world.
NEW PUBLICATION
The region can lay claim to the 10th most diverse chondrichthyes fauna in the world; representing nearly 12% of all known species, including about 25 endemic European Atlantic and nine endemic Mediterranean Sea species.
In the Russian Federation, there is currently almost no targeted scientific research of cartilaginous fish, which is due to a number of reasons. First, the fauna of cartilaginous fish in the waters of Russia is quite poor, since most of its seas are located in temperate and cold waters, which are characterized by a low species diversity of the considered group of fish. Secondly, there is no specialized fishing of cartilaginous fish in Russia, which are caught as by-catch in trawl, net and longline fisheries. In the domestic market, products made from shark and ray meat are in very low demand, so most of them are sold in Asian fish markets.
First SA Shark checklist – Published
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