The World Oceans Now 70% Shark Free 178
wheresjim writes "According to a study published in The Proceedings of The Royal Society, the world's oceans are now about 70% shark free. This is a bad sign for the sharks, the oceans and of course, journalists during slow news cycles."
/. response. (Score:5, Funny)
70% appropriate.
Free jaws' willy (Score:1, Funny)
Either you're with us you're with the sharks. (Score:5, Funny)
Why do you hate America?
Re:Either you're with us you're with the sharks. (Score:2)
Re:Either you're with us you're with the sharks. (Score:2)
Re:Either you're with us you're with the sharks. (Score:2)
Sharks -- you're on notice.
As an avid scuba diver (Score:2, Insightful)
Sharks are not schooling fish like tuna.
I used to see lots of sharks when I dove, I love them, now its rare to see one.
Too many people misunderstand sharks, leave them the hell alone, they have been here longer than us.
Sharks rule.
The other 30% (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The other 30% (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The other 30% (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The other 30% (Score:2)
Re:The other 30% (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The other 30% (Score:2)
Oh, wait...
Re:The other 30% (Score:2)
Re:The other 30% (Score:2)
At first sight I thought you said 7000 nanometer, but I presume you mean nautical miles.
Bad news? (Score:2, Funny)
By volume? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:By volume? (Score:3, Funny)
Or maybe we could just wring out all the sponges that are sitting at the bottom of the ocean.
Re:By volume? (Score:2)
midget sharks (Score:2, Funny)
To all alien tourists... (Score:2, Funny)
Offer only valid in the next 10 minutes.
Is that like 70% Fat Free? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Is that like 70% Fat Free? (Score:1)
Re:Is that like 70% Fat Free? (Score:2)
Batman! (Score:5, Funny)
(if you get that joke you're really old)
Re:Batman! (Score:2)
Thanks for reminding me.
Re:Batman! (Score:2)
Re:Batman! (Score:2)
"This solemn moment..." pure genius
-l
Funny on purpose (Score:2)
My guess is that the suits didn't realize how campy and unserious they had made it. The sort of comic book Batman as Dark Avenger (I mean hey, the character is a vigi
Re:Batman! (Score:2)
1. That he has premade shark repellant (with Bat(r) branding!)
2. Along with 3 other kinds of repellant (good thing it wasn't a Squid attack)
3. Robin taking his sweet time getting down the ladder
4. The rubber innertube sound the shark makes when Batman hits it
5. The fact that the shark explodes when it hits the water (
Most shows have a point where they jump the shark. Batman was one of the few where the shark was doing the j
Yes but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Kind of like having a 50% off sale without saying what the original or final price is. Sounds great...
Graphs are really nice.
Re:Yes but... (Score:5, Informative)
What the study found was that below a certain depth (2000 metres) there appear to be no shark species, even though the typical shark prey extend down to much deeper than that. So, while the researchers had assumed that sharks would move throughout the water column, and more species of depth-loving sharks would be found, none were below about 2000m.
This means that all current known shark species exist in only 30% of the total ocean volume (over 70% being below that 2000m depth). Which means that they are all in close proximity to humans and human fishing activity. Which means that they may be more susceptible to overfishing of that area, since they seem unable to spread to lower ocean levels (the so-called abyssal region) to find more food sources. The linked article suggests that there might be a lack of food sources at lower depths, but another summary I saw mentioned the presence of fish species below this depth - which might indicate that either the fish are in too low a number to sustain the sharks; the sharks are incapable of going to the lower depths due to physiology; or they can't compete with other predator species at those depths (eg. squid?).
Of course, other studies have indeed shown declining shark populations, and decreasing sizes of adult sharks of various species (such as white pointers and whale sharks) which indicates that there is increasing pressure on shark populations by overfishing of both them and their food sources... but this study didn't look at that.
Re:Yes but... (Score:2)
Whoa, shark competing with squids at 2000m depth! I bet it's cold down there. Maybe it can qualify for a 2010 Winter Olympics event!!
Re:Yes but... (Score:3, Informative)
Grab.
Re:Yes but... (Score:2)
Bad for all of us (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, if some shark species are threatened by extinction, that is bad news for all of us.
The savage overexploatation of our oceans is a terrible shame. I get furious when I read about EU subsedies keeping huge Spanish and British fishing fleets running.
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:4, Informative)
About a minutes googling confirms that the Spanish fleet gets over half of the total EU fishing subsidy, while the British fleet gets about 5%.
(Incidentally, British waters contain about 40% of the fish. I (am English and) reckon we should quit the EU ASAP.)
Apart from that, I agree with you.
Justin.
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:5, Funny)
We should encurage them to get new jobs. In the Austrian Navy for example.
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:2)
As for the original question it's illl-informed rubbish. British fishing fleets, on which I have worked, are being shut down at an unprecedented rates and the chances of a resurgence in numbers is about as likely as Satan going to work on a snowplough.
The main culprits are the large international factory fleets that catch indiscriminately and with little regard for local regulations. These are aided and abetted but
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:2)
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:2)
Replace oil with any limited resource (land, water, beaches, hardwoods, ivory).
Would be easier if we just ran out of people.
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:2)
I vote we ban fish-finder technologies from all EU waters.
Justin.
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:2)
Re:Bad for all of us (Score:2)
J.
Bad news for journalists during slow news? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bad news for journalists during slow news? (Score:3, Funny)
Are there fewer sharks than before?? (Score:3, Informative)
Survival of the fittest (Score:2)
The ones that are left obviously ate the ones in the other 70%.
If I recall... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.bigmarinefish.com/sharks.html [bigmarinefish.com]
Da da. Da da. Da da.....
(Sorry sharkies.)
You would be in trouble if... (Score:2)
You're assuming... (Score:2)
Or read the abstract? (Score:4, Informative)
See online journals of the Royal Society [royalsoc.ac.uk] -- it can be found under Proceedings of the Royal Society B:Biological Sciences titled "The absence of sharks from abyssal regions of the world's oceans".
Re:Or read the abstract? (Score:2)
Sharks aren't the only benchmark. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen (at things like the UN informal consultative process on oceans and the law of the sea, and the 3rd global conference on oceans, coasts and islands just last month) presentations showing fisheries catch decade-by-decade worldwide, and the trends are just plain scary.
So many things are being done in totally unsustainable ways that popular tasty species have come close to being wiped out over large areas. Cod around Canada, for example. Tuna in some other areas.
I like tasty fish and don't want them to all go away. (Yes, here I am subscribing to sustainability defined as "making sure your grandkids get to hunt Bambi, too.")
Re:Sharks aren't the only benchmark. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fisherman can either stop fishing now or stop later when there are none left to catch. Fish farms or bust.
Re:Sharks aren't the only benchmark. (Score:2)
if the farmed fish didn't taste weird (Score:3, Informative)
Farmed salmon taste a bit like corn. Hmmm. Any guess why that might be?
Re:Sharks aren't the only benchmark. (Score:2)
There's a problem there... most fish farms don't raise fish the way cattle ranches raise cattle. Cattle ranches have a stable population and breed more young from that population, plus trading breeding males and females (usually males) with other cattle ranches. It's a mostly self-contained system.
Most fish farms catch wild juvenile fish of whatever species out at sea in huge nets, corrals them in some coastal area, and then feed them until they get to an appropriate size.
You can see wher
Farm Raised Catfish ... Taste like... (Score:2)
Re:Sharks aren't the only benchmark. (Score:2)
Cordon off a large area of ocean, certainly >100 sq mi, likely at least 10 times that. Ideally that area would straddle the continental shelf too, I would guess. Within that area, NO FISHING, and enforce with lethal means, if necessary. Fish right along the borders, but no fishing inside, whatsoever.
I think it would work, though I'm probably lowballing the required area. But I suspect the real problems are political. The area
Already been done... (Score:2)
Re:Already been done... (Score:2)
Re:Sharks aren't the only benchmark. (Score:2)
Do you have any conception of just how astoundingly large the ocean is? An area 10 miles to a side would be a pretty pitiful "large area". There are cities that are bigger than 100^2 miles! You could section off an area 1 million^2 miles and not have an appreciable effect on commerce or travel, but would provide for liebensraum for the fishies.
'C
Re:Sharks aren't the only benchmark. (Score:2)
I live in Arkansas. Though I'm not a hunter, this is something that has be recongized a long time by the Arkansas Hunters & Fishers. There would be no deer in the state if it wasn't for the conservatation programs of those that want to hunt them. Of course there wouldn't be millions of cows if there wasn't some one willing to pay to raise the
Re:Sharks aren't the only benchmark. (Score:2)
Lazers (Score:2, Funny)
Say what?? (Score:2)
It doesn't even tell how shark free the oceans were before human influences.
Bad reporting (Score:3, Insightful)
It's 70% free compared to what? I don't know. As we explore the depths - do we have any baseline to compare too or is this normal? One possible explaination - what are the others? How good are the others?
The article cited is so horrid on this I can't get worked up over it. I have no idea what the 70% means, is this compared to known baselines or less than someone somewhere expected, or is it something else?
I suspect that the original scientific article would clear much of this up, but the report quoted is about as horrid as one can get. I'm not sure if you tried you get any less informed from this. Maybe it has dire ecological warnings - but all I can get is "Someone somewhere thinks something might not be what they expect but have never observed" - which isn't much to get worried over.
At least it didn't make the front page of slashdot.
Re:Bad reporting (Score:5, Informative)
Only the Slashdot artcile has the "Now 70% Free" spin.
Once I noticed this and reread the article, it made a lot more sense -- but it's still a crap article. There's no mention of who the international team of scientists that conducted the study are, and therefore no connection with the scientist quoted and the study. It seems as if the quoted scientist used his opportunity to be quoted in an article to express concern about a real problem, overfishing, without actually knowing about the study itself. Unfortunately the writer took this spin and put it into the opening paragraph and completely threw off the importance of the study.
What really seems to have been discovered is that there aren't sharks 5,280 feet below sea-level. The original study suspects this is because there's no fish to eat down there, which is a pretty obvious fact considering there's no light down there and very high water pressure. And considering 70% of the world's ocean mass is below 5,280 feet, therefore sharks are not in 70% of the ocean.
Re:Bad reporting (Score:3, Informative)
There ARE fish there, but not in enough numbers to sustain sharks. Check here [pbs.org], or even better, see David Attenburoughs fantastic series The Blue Planet [bbc.co.uk].
Re:Bad reporting (Score:2)
Re:Bad reporting (Score:2)
Yes, you have it completely right, and the headline for this story is completely wrong because of the addition of the word "now". They are saying they can't find sharks below the depth of n-thousand feet, and that 70% of the ocean is > n-thousand feet. They postulate that sharks have not been able to populate these depths for whatever reason.
The bad news for the sharks comes simply from the idea that they have nowhere to go. They can't go deeper to avoid fishing/environmental issues caused by or exacerb
Of course, they left the oceans ! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Of course, they left the oceans ! (Score:2)
In related news..... (Score:2)
Interesting development (Score:2)
Quoth the sharks... (Score:3, Funny)
Keep an eye out for Vogons, people.
Surprised no one else has asked... (Score:4, Funny)
Is this like 97% fat free . . . (Score:2)
The oceans are 30% shark? Yipes.
So I guess this means (Score:3, Funny)
Candygram... (Score:3, Funny)
Some bad math (Score:2)
Sharks are smart (Score:2)
Unlike people they move to where the food is?
Sharks also have a high demand for oxygen too. How much oxygen is available in the water at those depths?
And the missing sharks are now (Score:2)
Almost there.... (Score:2)
I believe the Rhino phase was next on the agenda?
U.K == "global whining" (Score:2)
Re:U.K == "global whining" (Score:2)
But, I understand your point.
not to worry, journalists (Score:2)
Actually, a study showed that during the year of the last big frenzy of shark attack stories, there were significantly fewer actual shark attacks and significantly more news stories about them than the previous year.
If that trend holds, we can expect nothing but 24 hour shark attack coverage once sharks actually become extinct.
oblig. fortune (Score:4, Funny)
procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as
to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of
sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making
documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly
listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another
documentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,
under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about the
effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply
scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White
in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind of
thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and
then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very
dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all
along.
-- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
Seems like the documentary people has stopped feeding the sharks
An uneven fight (Score:2)
Is that by volume? (Score:2)
Maybe it is by weight........
did ANYBODY RTFA???? (Score:2)
The Jaws effect (Score:2)
Now it's rare again. Not clear why.
If you haven't had shark, it's a tougher meat than trout or salmon. Try it broiled with lemon or lemon butter; don't overdo the sauces.
Well ... (Score:2)
I starve last (Score:3, Funny)
I've made my plans; they involve some fava beans and a nice chianti.
Re:Bloody disgrace! (Score:2)
I wish the Japanese would stop killing for fins. What gives them the right?
They have the right because it's for "scientific experiments". Just like whales.
Re:Bloody disgrace! (Score:2, Funny)
That they're higher in the food chain.
Re:Bloody disgrace! (Score:2)
Re:Only 30% to go. (Score:2)