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Shark News - Issue 3 | October 2021
Content:
- 4 Editorial: A note from the Chair
- 5 The time for action is now
- 9 Q&A with Sarah Fowler
- 13 Convention on Migratory Species Sharks MOU
- 18 Shark Spotlight: Jordan’s Chimaera
- 19 Hong Kong takes a lead: Recognizing wildlife crimes as organized and serious crimes in one of the world’s top shark fin trade hubs
- 23 Bringing science to management and promoting Rhino Ray conservation in Indonesia
- 32 The IUCN Green Status of Species
- 41 Australia releases its first Shark Action Plan
- 43 Re-examining the status of Chiloscyllium punctatum
- 49 Special Issue on Primitive Fishes
- 51 Using local ecological knowledge to fill in the knowledge gaps for Ghana’s shark fisheries
- 53 A new study found underreported catches of threatened elasmobranchs in Greece
- 56 SharkApp
- 58 Trading fins for conservation
- 61 Releasing for caring
- 64 Managing an ex situ elasmobranch population in Europe
- 68 A Crash Course on the Human Dimensions of Shark Conservation
- 71 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species update 2021-2
- 74 Whale Sharks: Biology, Ecology and Conservation
- 79 Funding Opportunities
- 80 Upcoming Meetings
Summary
The conversation around extinction was often shifting towards resilience, recovery, and solutions to the challenges we face when working in this field. Sadly, in the new paper titled ‘Overfishing drives over one-third of all sharks and rays towards a global extinction crisis’, we report that it is now estimated that 37% of sharks, rays, and chimaeras are threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Categories and Criteria. With that, we now also have the first three species of sharks and rays that are flagged as Critically Endangered – Possibly Extinct.
In this third issue of Shark News, you can read about how scientists and government entities in Indonesia have mobilized very quickly to understand and improve the status of rhino rays; how in Brazil, what started as a small project is making waves with coastal fishing communities who are now voluntarily releasing a Critically Endangered species of guitarfish; and how in Belize, fishers are currently working with scientists to provide information on their catches and inform policy.
We delve into IUCN’s ‘Green Status of Species’, a new global standard to measure how close a species is to be fully ecologically functional across its range and how much it has recovered due to conservation action.
Along with other stories from fieldwork in Ghana, Greece, and Malaysia, we have more good news from Australia, where only 12% of species are considered threatened, showcasing how fisheries management can work. Finally, the WCC is also when all IUCN Specialist Groups are dissolved and re-established and where so many decisions related to the functioning and program priorities of the IUCN are finalized.
