The sharks' and rays' populations of the world have been decreasing since 2014 and are now threatened with extinction, as per a new red list released at a global conference aiming for protecting the dwindling species.
There is a silver lining too – fishing quotas have allowed several tuna species to be put on the “path to recovery”, according to the announcement from The International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Some 37% of the world’s sharks and rays are considered in danger as on 2021, up from 33% seven years ago, the IUCN announced. Overfishing, loss of habitat and climate change explain the upward trend, it said. Oceanic shark populations have diminished by 71% since 1970.
The IUCN Red List Unit reassesses hundreds of species each year. Of the some 138,000 species the group tracks, more than 38,000 are threatened with extinction. Several recent studies have shown that many of the planet’s ecosystems are severely affected by global warming, deforestation, habitat degradation, pollution and other threats.