| Blue Sharks Beat the Odds, by Tasting Bad |
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Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News July 30, 2008 -- Although many sharks are experiencing population declines of up to 90 percent now, a new study on western North Atlantic blue sharks has found that numbers of the colorful species there are currently down, but not out. Other reports had concluded that the region's blue sharks were declining by around 60 percent, but the new analysis reduced the estimate by half, finding that populations of the 12.5-foot-long sharks have dropped by only 30 percent since the mid 1950s, when large-scale fishing practices began in that part of the Atlantic. Lead author Alexandre Aires-da-Silva told Discovery News that "the blue shark picture is not as 'catastrophic' as previously reported" for the western North Atlantic, bounded on the south by Cape Hatteras, N.C., and extending upwards to northern Newfoundland, Canada.
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