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<DIV class="wpn-post-title entry-title article-heading"><A
href="http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/01/a-quarter-of-shark-and-ray-species-are-in-trouble.html"><FONT
color=#000000 size=5><STRONG>One-quarter of shark and ray species are in
trouble</STRONG></FONT></A></DIV>
<DIV class=wpn-byline><TIME datetime="2014-01-21T17:39:59+00:00"
pubdate> by <SPAN class="author vcard"><A class="url fn n"
title="Daniel Cressey"
href="http://blogs.nature.com/news/author/Daniel-Cressey"><FONT
color=#000000>Daniel Cressey</FONT></A></SPAN><SPAN class=divider> </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=wpn-byline><SPAN class=divider><SPAN class=published><ABBR
class=value title=2014-01-21>21 Jan 2014 </ABBR></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=wpn-byline><SPAN class=divider><SPAN class=published><ABBR
class=value title=2014-01-21><A
href="http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/01/a-quarter-of-shark-and-ray-species-are-in-trouble.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Frss%2Fnewsblog+%28News+Blog+-+Blog+Posts%29&WT.ec_id=NEWS-20140204">http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/01/a-quarter-of-shark-and-ray-species-are-in-trouble.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Frss%2Fnewsblog+%28News+Blog+-+Blog+Posts%29&WT.ec_id=NEWS-20140204</A></ABBR></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV class="wpn-entry-content content">
<P>The first global analysis of the threats to sharks and their kin suggests
that about one-quarter of all the world’s species are at risk.</P>
<P>Nicholas Dulvy, a marine ecologist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby,
Canada, and his colleagues analysed 1,041 species of cartilaginous fishes, or
chondrichthyans — the group that encompasses sharks, rays and ‘ghost sharks’,
also known as chimaeras (see ‘<A
href="http://www.nature.com/news/why-sharks-have-no-bones-1.14487"><FONT
color=#1f699b>Why sharks have no bones</FONT></A>‘). Of these, 25 species are
critically endangered, 43 are endangered and 113 are vulnerable according to the
‘red list’ criteria of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
(IUCN); an additional 132 species are classed as ‘near threatened’, while there
was insufficient data to make a decision in 487 cases, Dulvey and his
collaborators report in the journal <A
href="http://elife.elifesciences.org/content/3/e00590"><FONT
color=#1f699b>eLife</FONT></A>.</P>
<P>“In greatest peril are the largest species of rays and sharks, especially
those living in shallow water that is accessible to fisheries,” said Dulvy in a
<A
href="http://www.iucn.org/?14311/A-quarter-of-sharks-and-rays-threatened-with-extinction"><FONT
color=#1f699b>statement</FONT></A>. Dulvy also co-chairs the IUCN’s Shark
Specialist Group.</P>
<P>Extinction risk among these animals is “substantially higher” than for most
other vertebrates, write Dulvy and his colleagues, with deliberate and
accidental targeting by fishing the main culprit.</P>
<P>“Chondrichthyans have slipped through the jurisdictional cracks of
traditional national and international management authorities,” warn the authors
in their paper. “Rather than accept that many chondrichthyans will inevitably be
driven to economic, ecological, or biological extinction, we warn that dramatic
changes in the enforcement and implementation of the conservation and management
of threatened chondrichthyans are urgently needed to ensure a healthy future for
these iconic fishes and the ecosystems they
support.”</P></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>