Fewer great white sharks are left in the oceans than there are tigers surviving on Earth.
Canadian expert Dr Ronald O'Dor said the two top predators are almost equally under threat, but the plight of great whites needed greaster attention
Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in San Diego, he told how the discovery was made by colleagues from the Census of Marine Life.
He said: "I recently heard a report from the team that's been tagging great white sharks. The estimated total population of great white sharks in the world's oceans is actually less than the number of tigers.
"We hear an awful lot about how endangered tigers are but apparently great white sharks are pretty close to the same level. Some people say I don't care, they eat people, but I think we have to give them a little space to live in.
"Until recently, people thought sharks were bad and there was no urge to save great whites. Now people are beginning to understand that they are rare and that they are a wonderful species."
The same meeting heard from experts warning that seep sea "bottom trawling" was causing untold damage to fragile reef ecosystems around the world.
The heavy fishing nets, dragged along the sea bed on large rubber rollers called "rockhoppers", smashed and flattened coral outcrops that provided vital refuges for fish and other marine species, said marine biologist Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, from the University of Plymouth.
He is calling for concerted international action to ban all bottom trawling from at risk habitats, many of which are yet to be identified.
Work by scientists involved in the Census of Marine Life (CoML) - a major worldwide project cataloguing life in the oceans - is now bringing to light the true extent of the destruction wrought by bottom trawling.
Dr Hall-Spencer, a leading CoML researcher, said: "Less than 1% of the estimated 50,000 seamounts have ever been surveyed and our research visits have revealed pristine coral reefs and many species that are brand new to science.
"However, over the past five years, these surveys have also worryingly revealed that all over the world, deep-sea habitats are suffering severe impacts from bottom trawling down to depths of 1,000 metres and more."
Many of the most threatened sites were cold water coral reefs in temperate zones that are still in the process of being discovered and explored, he said.
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