NIWA fisheries data manager Dr Jade Maggs took part in a global survey involving 123 scientists from 58 nations found that decades of over-exploitation have devastated entire populations of reef sharks in areas of close proximity of nearest market, poor governance and human population density. Data from 15165 video deployments across 371 reefs around the world confirmed that sanctuaries, closed areas, catch limits and an absence of gillnets and longlines are associated with a substantially higher relative abundance of reef sharks.
Underwater images provided by Global FinPrint.
The article, published in Nature, is available here: nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2519-y
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