“Shark Week” kicks off on July 11th, and just in time, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released five facts you probably did not know about shark conservation to raise awareness about this imperiled group of fishes and what’s being done to protect them. 

On World Oceans Day, WCS is launching a new 10-year strategy to save the oceans’ remaining sharks and rays in 10 unique shark hotspots around the world.

A team of marine scientists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has confirmed that southern Africa’s most threatened endemic shark – the Critically Endangered shorttail nurse shark (Pseudoginglymostoma brevicaudatum) – has been found to occur in Mozambique; a finding that represents a range extension of more than 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles).

In partnership with Sofar Ocean Technologies, a San Francisco-based company specializing in ocean exploration, WCS is opening a call for applications for organizations that would like to work with Sofar’s underwater drone, the Trident.  

Sharks and rays are one of the most endangered groups of animals on the planet.There are more than 1,000 species of sharks and rays living today.Approximately 100 species of sharks and rays are regularly traded for their fins and meat.Since 2013, CITES began to list regularly commercially traded species of sharks and rays under the convention’s appendices, mainly under CITES Appendix II, which is about sustainable trade and utilization.There are 18 species up for listing at CITES Cop 18 (a...

Mako sharks, also known as the ‘cheetahs of the sharks,’ are the fastest of all shark species, but they cannot outswim the threat of overfishing in the world’s oceans, say conservation experts from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) and other groups who applaud plans by government delegates to increase protection for makos and other sharks and rays fishes at CITES, convening this week in Switzerland.

The release last week of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN's) assessment of giant guitarfish and wedgefish identifies these flattened sharks as the world's most threatened marine fish.

All You Need to Know about the Aug. 17-28 Wildlife Trade Conference in Geneva, Switzerland

The Government of Bangladesh announced the declaration of the Nijhum Dwip Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the northern Bay of Bengal to safeguard critical spawning grounds for the country’s most valuable fish species and some of the world’s largest populations of endangered dolphins, porpoises, sharks, rays, and marine turtles.

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Malaysia Program (WCS Malaysia) lauds the Sarawak Government for gazetting Luconia Shoals as a marine national park effective 18 October last year and formally published in the Sarawak Gazette on 17 January 2019. Located in the South China Sea over the Sunda Continental Shelf in the Malaysian Exclusive Economic Zone, Luconia Shoals is the largest marine national park in the country at over 1 million hectares.