Author: Natalie Heng
Source: The Star Online [1]
October 9, 2012

"GUY RAYMENT, 47, had overheard lamentations about shark data deficiency many times before. One day, just as divers do, he was complaining about the severe decline in shark populations around the world when his friend said: “Why don’t you stop complaining and do something about it?” He thought she had a good point, and that was how the Asian Shark Conservation group was born.

Worldwide, there is a vacuum of information on shark populations, behaviour and ecology. Around 2% of the world’s 500 or so shark species are at “extremely high” risk of extinction in the wild, 4% are at “very high” risk, 11% are at “high” risk, and 13% are close to qualifying or likely to qualify for a threatened category, in the near future.

Just 23% of our shark species are safely listed as of “least concern” in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of endangered species. That leaves roughly half of the world’s shark species literally swimming in a black hole of information."

To read the full text of this article, click here [2].