Sharks and rays now 20% closer to extinction, says new Index

See this article on from Oceanographic as it features the newly released Science paper titled 'Ecological erosion and expanding extinction risk of sharks and rays' by Dulvy et al. (2024).

FROM | Oceanographic
WRITTEN BY | Rob Hutchins

​The risk of extinction now being faced by all species of sharks, rays, and chimaeras has increased by almost 20% over the last 50 years, driven primarily – according to a newly developed Red List Index trained on marine life – by overfishing, a direct human impact that has more than halved species populations since 1970. 

Deploying the new Red List Index (RLI) tool – one devised to determine the consequences of species extinction for this grouping of fish known as chondrichthyan – researchers have learned that continued overfishing of the largest species in both nearshore and pelagic habitats could wipe out up to 22% of ecological functions.

This is the latest research to come out of Simon Fraser University in Canada, where Professor Nicholas K Dulvy has led the development of an aquatic Red List Index (RLI) to determine the risk of extinction for chondrichthyan fish species – an ancient and ecologically diverse group of over 1,199 sharks, rays, and chimaeras – which are all now facing increased threats from human activities.

Read the full article online here.