• Frequently Asked Questions

    Starry Skate (Raja asterias)
    Starry Skate (Raja asterias) | ©Julien Renoult | iNaturalist.org | CC BY

IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group Structure and Roles

​The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the world’s largest global environmental network composed of both government and civil society organizations. It is a membership union with more than 1,400 member organizations and over 17,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries. This diversity and vast expertise makes IUCN the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.

The Species Survival Commission (SSC) is a science-based network of over 10,500 experts from almost every country of the world, all working towards achieving the vision of: ‘A just world that values and conserves nature through positive action to reduce the loss of diversity of life on earth’. The work of the SSC revolves around a cycle that comprises assessing the status of biodiversity, planning for conservation, and catalyzing conservation actions.

The IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group (SSG) was established by the SSC in 1991 in response to growing awareness and concern of the severe impact of fisheries on shark, ray, and chimaera populations around the world. The SSG is now recognized as the leading authority on the status of sharks, rays, and chimaeras and has recently finished assessing the status of all known species. Central to this process has been the knowledge and expertise shared by its members. The SSG is now moving forward to ensure that this knowledge converts into plans and interventions that lead into conservation action for priority species groups. Our vision is a world where sharks, rays, and chimaeras are valued and managed sustainably. Our mission is to secure the conservation, management, and where necessary the recovery of the world’s sharks, rays, and chimaeras by mobilizing technical and scientific expertise to provide the knowledge that enables action.

One of the key roles of the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group is as the Red List Authority for sharks, rays, and chimaeras. This means that we oversee the assessment of the extinction risk of species against the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. The role of RLAs is to ensure that all species are assessed at least once every ten years and, if possible, every five years. Our team has two Red List Authority Coordinators, appointed by our Chair.

In addition to maintaining the IUCN Red List updated on the status of sharks, rays, and chimaeras, assessment workshops and associated reports, delineating Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRAs), our team produces reports, develops policy advisory statements (e.g., a recent statement on Shark Control Programs and Shark Culls), and contributes scientific knowledge at international conservation meetings like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) or the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS). We also have a series of disciplinary working groups within the SSG, including the Aquarium Working Group and the Human Dimensions Working Group. See more about the SSG working groups here.

The IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group (SSG) has updated its operational structure for the 2021–2025 quadrennium. It currently operates with a Chair, two Red List Authority Coordinators, Regional Vice-Chairs, and Working Group Chairs. See more of Our Team here.

The SSG is the global Red List Authority for sharks, rays, and chimaeras. All IUCN Red List of Threatened Species assessments are guided by the Red List Authority Coordinator(s) (RLAC), who ensure that all known species’ statuses remain updated.

Regional Vice-Chairs (RVCs) are appointed for each of the SSG regions and coordinate SSG members’ work in these regions, represent the SSG within their communities and among regional stakeholders, and serve as the official link between their respective region and the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC). RVCs play a key role in linking global conservation priorities to the local level and vice versa.

Working Group Chairs (WGCs) coordinate groups of members with expertise on specific topics related to some of the most pressing issues concerning shark, ray, and chimaera research and conservation. WGCs identify global and regional priorities within their ‘themes’ and provide guidance and act as the SSG’s expert network for their respective topics

The IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group (SSG) is one of the largest specialist groups within the IUCN Species Survival Commission, with 237 members from 83 countries and territories. New members are appointed by invitation only every four years. They are typically nominated by existing members and Regional Vice Chairs, but can also be recommended by non-members. Members of the SSG are volunteer experts from a broad range of expertise and experience, but all are actively involved in shark, ray, and chimaera research, policy, or conservation. While all nominations will be considered, because of the voluntary nature of the network, not all can be accepted to ensure we keep the membership size at a manageable and effective level. The membership period is currently closed and will reopen at the end of the quadrennium in 2025.

Sharks, Rays, Chimaeras and their Conservation

There are over 1,290 described Chondrichthyan species around the world – this includes sharks, rays, and chimaeras. New species are described several times a year, so this number changes frequently. Many reports (including those written by the SSG) use the term ‘sharks’ to mean all Chondrichthyan species – we define this at the beginning of our reports, whereas other documents are focused on just sharks (Selachiformes). The terms ‘batoids’ or ‘rays’ refer to Batoidea and include rays, skates, sawfishes, and guitarfishes. The term ‘elasmobranchs’ refers to both sharks and rays, not chimaeras. Finally, chimaeras (Chimaeriformes) are sometimes also referred to as ‘ghost sharks.’ It is essential to understand these distinctions when interpreting results from various reports.

The results of our latest 2020 assessments show that an estimated 37% of all known species of sharks, rays, and chimaeras are threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. Overfishing is the greatest threat to sharks, rays, and chimaeras, by far, affecting 100% of threatened species. Further, 31% of species are threatened by habitat loss, 10% are threatened by climate change, and 7% are threatened by marine pollution. It is important to note that shark finning (the process of removing the fins from a shark or ray at sea and discarding the body) is not the largest or only threat to shark or ray species, and that this term is commonly misused by well-intentioned citizens. Shark finning remains an issue in some parts of the world, but the greatest threat (overfishing) includes, but is not limited to, shark finning.

The number of sharks, rays, and chimaeras killed per year has been estimated at 100 million animals. This figure has been around since the 1980s. More recent updates change this little, though suggest a range of 63 to 273 million animals killed each year. This figure is generally arrived at by taking the global weight of shark, ray, and chimaera catch and dividing it by the average size of a caught shark. This is exactly how it was done in the 1980s, but this more recent estimate tries to break the catch into species and apply an average caught size for each species. We think this estimate is a vast underestimate, for a number of reasons: (1) it largely overlooks rays (which make up over half of the global catch in weight) and does not count chimaeras at all; and (2) the global catch is a small fraction (1/2 to 1/4) of what we think is caught and does not enter markets, e.g. due to discarding or due to capture for local consumption. Finally, we are concerned that the 100 million figure distracts from the real question, which sharks, rays, and chimaeras are threatened with extinction due to overfishing? It is not the number caught, but the rate at which each species is caught relative to the productivity of that species.

Targeting is a difficult concept. Most sharks and rays are caught alongside fishing operations for other fish species, or are caught in indiscriminate fishing gears (e.g., gillnets, longlines, trawls). So most species caught by fisheries are bycatch, but often a valuable bycatch. The reason shark and ray populations have declined is that they are more sensitive to fishing than the species that are targeted (often teleost fish). Hence, it is inevitable that sharks and rays decline even if the target species is sustainably fished. It is hard to say which species are taken solely for their fins – there are some scientific papers that have carried out surveys (genetic or market surveys) that have looked at species for sale but this has only been in certain markets in certain areas of the world.

No shark species, to our knowledge, have become extinct globally due to industrial scale fishing. However, there are some populations of species that have become locally extinct. For example, sawfishes (family Pristidae) have disappeared across much of their known range. Additionally, the Javan Stingaree (Urolophus javanicus) was recently declared Extinct, though it is challenging to assign a specific cause to that extinction.

Policy solutions to save and recover sharks, rays, and chimaeras are context specific. Generally speaking, a mix of sustainable fisheries quotas, habitat protections for particularly critical or vulnerable habitats, and retention and harvest bans for highly threatened species can help to reduce mortality.

Yes. Most fisheries for sharks and rays have been unsustainable, both historically and currently. Unsustainable fishing is the greatest threat to sharks and rays, and the life history of sharks and rays (often having relatively few offspring relatively infrequently) makes them uniquely biologically susceptible to overfishing. That said, sustainable fisheries are possible, exist for a few shark and ray populations in a couple of countries. Fisheries management measures that lead to and ensure sustainable fisheries are generally preferred over prohibiting all fishing and trade of sharks, rays, and chimaeras.

In addition to the 2014 and 2021 papers linked above, please see our publications.

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

Established in 1964, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus, and plant species. The IUCN Red List is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity. Far more than a list of species and their conservation status, it is a powerful tool to inform and catalyse action for biodiversity conservation and policy change, critical to protecting the natural resources we need to survive. It provides information about range, population size, habitat and ecology, use and/or trade, threats, and conservation actions that will help inform necessary conservation decisions. Currently, there are more than 172,000 species on The IUCN Red List.

Typically, the SSG hosts a series of weeklong regional workshops in which data are compiled and shark, ray, and chimaera species are assessed according to the IUCN Categories and Criteria. Some data are compiled and some species are assessed remotely, with opportunities for remote participation. The IUCN Categories and Criteria were  developed to improve objectivity and transparency in assessing the conservation status of  species, and therefore to improve consistency and understanding among users. The IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria are used widely as an objective, rigorous, evidence based, transparent, and authoritative system for assessing the global risk of extinction for species.

There are three threatened categories: Critically Endangered, Endangered, and Vulnerable (collectively referred to as the ‘threatened’ categories). Species that do not meet the IUCN threshold for a threatened category, but are close to qualifying or are likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future are placed into the Near Threatened category. Species that have been evaluated against the Red List Criteria and do not qualify for either a threatened category or Near Threatened are assessed as Least Concern. A species is Data Deficient when there is inadequate information to make a direct or indirect assessment of its risk of extinction using the Red List criteria. The category Not Evaluated indicates that a species has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. Species that have not been evaluated do not appear on the IUCN Red List website. See the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria for further information.

Each species is reassessed approximately every ten years, and a reassessment cycle was completed in 2020. The first assessment was completed in 2012 (see this 2014 paper for a summary of results) and the first reassessment was completed in 2020 (see this 2021 paper for results.)

The most recent species assessments can be viewed at the IUCN Red List database, which is freely accessible online.

See below infographic. Data were extracted from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in January 2024.

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