New Study: 1 in 4 Sharks and Rays Threatened With Extinction (National Geographic)

The future for sea animals looks pretty grim. And, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), it will only get worse unless action is taken to conserve sharks and rays.

A new global study released this week predicts that a quarter of chondrichthyan fishes—sharks, rays, and chimaeras—are threatened with extinction.

The study, conducted by a panel of 302 experts from 64 countries, was the first global analysis of the fish class. It was led by the IUCN’s Shark Specialist Group.

“Previous marine studies are based on stock assessments that are taxonomically and geographically limited,” said Nick Dulvy, a researcher at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, and co-chair of the IUCN’s Shark Specialist Group.

“Many older studies are based on North American populations, and only on the most abundant fish in the world.”

The group found that only 23 percent of this large class of fish is listed as “least concern” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Of the 1,041 known species of chondrichthyan fish, 25 are listed as critically endangered, 43 are endangered, and 113 are vulnerable to extinction. This is the worst reported status for any major vertebrate group except for amphibians.

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