Global spatial risk assessment of sharks under the footprint of fisheries

Pelagic sharks are among the widest-ranging vertebrates, with some species exhibiting annual migrations on the ocean-basin scale, long term trans-ocean movements and/or fine-scale site fidelity to preferred shelf and open ocean areas. These behaviours could cause extensive spatial overlap with different fisheries that exploit regions ranging from coastal areas to the deep ocean. Satellite tracking data of pelagic sharks was used provide a global estimate of the extent of overlap in the use of space between sharks and industrial fisheries.

Satellite-linked transmitters were deployed on tiger and whale shark at Ningaloo reef. These tags provide location estimates that are used in the analysis of movements. these data were combined with a global dataset(from multiple authors) of shark tracks from Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, together with the movements of fishing vessels in a work led by collaborators that resulted in the publications Queiroz et al. 2019 Global spatial risk assessment of sharks under the footprint of fisheries (Nature).