The population of great white sharks off the coast of California has increased by a third over the past 10 years thanks to efforts to protect them, including a ban on the use of gillnets. This is evidenced by the results of a comprehensive study published in the journal Biological Conservation.
The great white shark, reaching a record length of 6 m and living up to 70 years, is on the verge of extinction - there are only about 3,500 individuals on Earth. Researchers have spent over 2,500 hours monitoring the population of these so-called man-eating sharks. Currently, their number is about 300 individuals, while in 2002 there were only 219.
'The finding, a result of 10 years of photographing and identifying individual sharks in the group, is an important indicator of the overall health of the marine environment in which the sharks live,' said Oregon State University researcher and study co-author Taylor Chapple in a statement. 'Robust populations of large predators are critical to the health of our coastal marine ecosystem,' he added.
However, scientists are concerned about the low number of adult females in the area - about 60, Paul Kanive added. Thus it’s important to continue to «protect them and their surroundings».
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