The Dramatic Decline of Shark Population in the Last 50 Years
And the reasons behind it.
Do you know that many Asian communities around the world love to have shark fin soup on their dinner tables? To some, it’s a status symbol rooted in their cultural heritage.
A study conducted by Christina Pei Pei Choy and Benjamin J. Wainwright in 2022 examined different shark fin soups collected in Singapore. What they found was quite astonishing.
They identified blue shark (listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List) as the most common species found in the soup samples, while the most expensive soup they examined had fins from scalloped hammerhead shark which is listed in CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) Appendix II.
The study ended up identifying a total of ten shark species that are assessed as Critically Endangered, Endangered, or Vulnerable under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
See how some people’s love for shark fin soup creates nightmares in the shark world, pushing them towards extinction.
A 2021 study in Nature reported that global shark and ray populations have declined by 71% since 1970. This decline is primarily due to an eighteen-fold surge in fishing activity. Moreover, innovations…
