Australian researchers believe they have detected a dramatic decline in shark numbers over the past half century, findings that could challenge the use of culls as a way of responding to attacks.
The number of some shark species caught in nets off Queensland have fallen between 74 and 92 percent in the past 55 years, according to a study published in Communications Biology on Thursday.
Researchers led by George Roff of the University of Queensland studied the catch from government-installed mesh nets and drum lines designed to prevent attacks on humans near the Great Barrier Reef.
An estimated 50,000 sharks have been caught by the program.
The team found that in 1962, an average of 9.5 hammerheads were found per year, declining to 0.8 by 2016. Hammerheads are more likely to get caught in nets because of their shape.
Similar drops were seen in the numbers of whaler sharks.
Catch rates for tiger sharks, which are involved in many more attacks on humans, were stable over the first 30 years of the study period, but have since fallen.
Roff and his colleagues cautioned that the data was not standardized until 1992, and different baits and nets might have been used, making the data imperfect.
However, in 1992, the report showed that the catch of “hammerheads declined by 68 percent, whalers by 69 percent, tigers by 69 percent and white sharks by 42 percent.”
The declines were largely due to the program, as well as “depletion by recreational and commercial fisheries,” it said.
The falling numbers of apex predators like sharks could have a wide-ranging and as-yet understood impacts on marine ecosystems, the researchers said.
“The extent and magnitude of decline in apex predators in the marine environment is less well understood” than the decline of those on land, the study said.
The fall, coupled with data showing continued or even increased shark attacks in the region, could be an argument against culls as a means of prevention.
“The extent to which targeting shark populations reduces interaction rates with humans in coastal ecosystems is contentious,” the researchers said.
There have been 27 shark attacks in Australia this year, data from Sydney’s Taronga Zoo showed.
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