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Comment
. 2014 Feb 5:3:e02199.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.02199.

Counting the cost of overfishing on sharks and rays

Darcy Bradley  1 , Steven D Gaines
Affiliations
Comment

Counting the cost of overfishing on sharks and rays

Darcy Bradley et al. Elife. .

Abstract

Over half of all shark and ray species are at risk of extinction or at least heading that way.

Keywords: biodiversity change; extinction risk; fishes; life histories; population biology; sharks and rays.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests:The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Sharks and rays are more under threat than insects, mammals and amphibians.
According to the Red List of Threatened Species maintained by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 1148 species of insects (24.9% of the total), 1467 species of mammals (26.6%) and 2339 species of amphibians (36.5%) are ‘Threatened or Near Threatened’. Dulvy et al. estimate that for sharks and rays this figure is 562 species (53.9% of the total). The IUCN definition of Threatened includes species that are Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

  • Extinction risk and conservation of the world's sharks and rays.
    Dulvy NK, Fowler SL, Musick JA, Cavanagh RD, Kyne PM, Harrison LR, Carlson JK, Davidson LN, Fordham SV, Francis MP, Pollock CM, Simpfendorfer CA, Burgess GH, Carpenter KE, Compagno LJ, Ebert DA, Gibson C, Heupel MR, Livingstone SR, Sanciangco JC, Stevens JD, Valenti S, White WT. Dulvy NK, et al. Elife. 2014;3:e00590. doi: 10.7554/eLife.00590. Epub 2014 Jan 21. Elife. 2014. PMID: 24448405 Free PMC article.

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