SAVE THE SHARKS...SAVE THE OCEANS

RUTHLESS PREDATORS, MINDLESS KILLERS, MAN-EATERS... SHARKS HAVE A FEARSOME REPUTATION THAT BEARS LITTLE RELATION TO REALITY. THE TRUTH IS, THESE REMARKABLE CREATURES ARE STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE. BUT OUR WATERS WON'T BE ANY SAFER WITHOUT THEM. IN FACT, THE PLANET'S SEAS WILL BE IN EVEN GREATER JEOPARDY THAN THEY ALREADY ARE

- JOE PHELAN

Each morning, hundreds of thousands of fishing vessels head into the waters around Indonesia.

The country, comprising around 17,000 islands with a combined coastline of almost 100,000km (about 62,000 miles), is one of the world's fishing superpowers and, in recent decades, has grown in strength.

The country has established a reputation for providing quality tuna, shrimp and crab to high-end restaurants around the world. But behind this economic and culinary success story is an uncomfortable truth: Indonesia ranks among the world's top shark-killing nations, catching an estimated 100,000 metric tonnes (98,400 tons) of shark a year, which is contributing to an alarming global decline in shark numbers.

"The biggest threat to sharks currently is fishing," says Dr Colin Simpfendorfer of the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. "Its impact dwarfs any of the other impacts for almost all species.

Too many sharks are dying in fisheries." The issue is by no means exclusive to Indonesian waters. Across the planet, an estimated 100 million sharks are killed annually either intentionally or as bycatch. That's one shark per 80 people - a colossal figure that's almost impossible to comprehend.

According to an article published in Nature, the global abundance of oceanic sharks and rays has declined by 71 per cent since 1970 and, as reported in a 2021 analysis in Current Biology, one-third of sharks and rays are now threatened with extinction. Historically, that decline has been largely attributed to overfishing, but it's not the only activity putting pressure on shark populations today. "New threats such as shipping, offshore wind farms and climate change are also affecting populations," says Dr James Sulikowski, director of the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station in the US.

A KEYSTONE SPECIES