Big Atlantic sharks disappearing, study warns

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Fri, Mar. 30, 2007
Big Atlantic sharks disappearing, study warns
Overfishing of the Atlantic Coast's largest sharks may cause a decline in the population of valuable shellfish, according to a report today in the journal Science.
BY CURTIS MORGAN
[e-mail]

Humans, mainly those in countries with a craving for shark-fin soup, have devoured so many of the oceans' top predators that it has rattled the length of the marine food chain, according to a study to be published today in the prestigious journal Science.

While previous studies have calculated declines by half or more, this one argues that seven of the largest sharks along the Atlantic Coast have all but vanished because of overfishing -- down as much as 99 percent for bull, dusky and smooth hammerheads over the last 35 years.

Researchers believe the disappearance triggered a boom-and-bust cycle for other sea life, resulting in the wipeout of a valuable scallop fishery -- a ripple effect biologists have long warned about but that has not been widely documented.

'I am not using the word `extinction' at this point. The ecological term we would use is 'functionally eliminated,' '' said co-author Julia Baum, a biologist at Dalhousie University in Canada. ``It means there aren't enough of these top predators around anymore to do their role.''
(snip/...)

http://www.miamiherald.com/569/story/57703.html

[redqueen]

1. They really don't care...

I think they'd actually be proud of the fact that they ate the last one of them, the numbskulls.

x(

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Repugs will rush to pay premium prices for shark-fishing expeditions ...

the rarer they get, the bigger the joy of killing one. Whoever kills the last one is assured everlasting glory.