A new report from England’s University of Southampton found that warming ocean temperatures could lead to more species of sharks being able to survive where they were unable to before.
National Oceanography Centre Southampton senior research fellow Dr. Ken Collins stated that 10 species of sharks currently found in warmer parts of the world may be swimming in British seas as the climate changes.
“It’s likely we will be seeing more sharks spread from warmer regions such as the Mediterranean Sea towards our waters in the UK over the next 30 years,” Collins said. “These include the likes of blacktips, sand tigers and hammerheads, which are currently found swimming off the coasts of Spain and Portugal.”
While warming oceans would expand the potential habitat of some species, the overall effects could be disastrous for sharks in general. An estimated 10 million small and 100,000 larger sharks from 40 different species are found in the seas around the UK. Many of those sharks could be in danger of becoming extinct in the region. Species such as such as thresher, basking and nursehound sharks, are already in steep decline due to over-fishing and other problems.
“Though while the potential number of shark species around the UK may increase in the next few decades, the overall number of sharks, especially the larger ones, will fall as a result of over-fishing, plastic waste and climate change,” Collins said. “It’s really important we work together to prevent a premature extinction of these wonderful creatures.”
The research was commissioned as part of Nat Geo WILD’s Sharkfest 2018.
