Hammerhead sharks. Photo by Masayuki Agawa, Ocean Image Bank.
Sharks have persisted as powerful ocean predators for more than 400 million years. They survived five mass extinctions, diversifying into an amazing variety of forms and lifestyles. But this ancient lineage is now among the world’s most threatened species groups due to overexploitation in poorly regulated fisheries and the proliferation of wasteful finning practices.
Fishers in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Reference image by Rasheedhrasheed, Wikimedia Commons.
A recent update introduced to the CMSY methodology used to assess the status of fish stocks has proven to more accurately predict the catch that a population can support than highly-valued data-intensive models.
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Sea Around Us project manager, Dr. Deng Palomares. Photo by Paul Joseph.
The Sea Around Us project manager, Dr. Maria ‘Deng’ Palomares, has been invited to become a member of the international steering committee for the “Sustainability, Predictability and Resilience of Marine Ecosystems” (SUPREME) program, which is led by the United States of America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (UNDOS).
Dr. Deng Palomares and Dr. Gabriel Reygondeau.
The Sea Around Us project manager, Dr. Deng Palomares, and Dr. Gabriel Reygondeau, AquaMaps coordinator and a research associate at UBC’s Changing Oceans Research Unit, have developed a non-credential course titled Introduction to Aquatic Data Sciences.
Swirling school of anchovies. Photo by Cliff, Wikimedia Commons.
Over 120 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent could be sequestered every year by 2050 by applying a market-based solution (MBS) to global fisheries that would allow fishers to decide whether – at certain times – it is more profitable to go fish or to remain at port.