(ORDO NEWS) — Biologists have stated that the number of sharks in the Caribbean Sea has decreased significantly compared to the figures that were 7 thousand years ago. Their number has decreased by 71%. In order to get the most accurate statistics, experts used fragments of scales that belonged to sea predators.
Reported by PNAS.
Sharks are considered the most ancient inhabitants of our planet, but when predators were discovered by humans, this provoked a significant decrease in their number. The situation becomes even more difficult due to the fact that sharks grow too slowly and reproduce slowly. A small number of babies are born, which is not enough to eliminate the damage resulting from the catch of a huge number of individuals.
Experts carefully studied the coral reefs that are in the Caribbean Sea and made an analysis of the fossilized shark scales that were on the surface of these reefs. As it was possible to establish, about 7 thousand years ago in the Caribbean there were almost 3.4 times more shark tracks than on those reefs that were formed recently. Scientists also concluded that several millennia ago, sharks were 71% more.
The most endangered are the fast-moving pelagic sharks that live near the surface. Most of all individuals were destroyed at the end of the 20th century, when sharks began to be actively caught in the Caribbean. The experts added that not only in this area, the number of these predators has significantly decreased.
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