Reef sharks facing extinction risk w/ Samantha Sherman: January 27, 2023

While fish and chip shop customers in South Australia are eating threatened and endangered shark species labelled as “flake”, sharks are facing the risk of being extinct. As a 2020 study concluded sharks were “functionally extinct” on 20% of the world’s coral reefs. A new study building on this research from the journal Nature Communications shows that now 2 in 3 of the worlds sharks are being driven to extinction. The cause is clear and simple: overfishing. What will be the effects on the ocean ecosystem? What consequenses will this have for humans? And why do sharks have such a bad image?