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The World Oceans Now 70% Shark Free
wheresjim writes "According to a study published in The Proceedings of The Royal Society, the world's oceans are now about 70% shark free. This is a bad sign for the sharks, the oceans and of course, journalists during slow news cycles."
I am shocked to hear this kind of pro-shark fascism being spewed on Slashdot. As we all know, sharks are vile, evil creatures who are a danger and threat to all life and liberty.
Why do you hate America?
Are circling around Australian beaches.
Czech language for absolute beginners
Does this mean that the ocean is 30% sharks by volume? I AM NEVER SWIMMING AGAIN!
I pretend to know more than I really do by mooching off google and wikipedia.
I blame Batman for dumping his anti-shark-spray into the ocean.
(if you get that joke you're really old)
The summary misinterpreted the article (yeah, BIG surprise). They haven't found 70% of the ocean is NOW shark-free. They have found that, all along, sharks only inhabit about 30% of the available ocean regions.
What the study found was that below a certain depth (2000 metres) there appear to be no shark species, even though the typical shark prey extend down to much deeper than that. So, while the researchers had assumed that sharks would move throughout the water column, and more species of depth-loving sharks would be found, none were below about 2000m.
This means that all current known shark species exist in only 30% of the total ocean volume (over 70% being below that 2000m depth). Which means that they are all in close proximity to humans and human fishing activity. Which means that they may be more susceptible to overfishing of that area, since they seem unable to spread to lower ocean levels (the so-called abyssal region) to find more food sources. The linked article suggests that there might be a lack of food sources at lower depths, but another summary I saw mentioned the presence of fish species below this depth - which might indicate that either the fish are in too low a number to sustain the sharks; the sharks are incapable of going to the lower depths due to physiology; or they can't compete with other predator species at those depths (eg. squid?).
Of course, other studies have indeed shown declining shark populations, and decreasing sizes of adult sharks of various species (such as white pointers and whale sharks) which indicates that there is increasing pressure on shark populations by overfishing of both them and their food sources... but this study didn't look at that.
We should encurage them to get new jobs. In the Austrian Navy for example.
For a nice date: Call strftime(3C)!