The ongoing efforts in conserving the porbeagle shark population had researchers install trackers on them, but their latest discovery saw that they are preyed upon by larger marine animals of the same species. It was revealed that there is an ongoing porbeagle shark versus shark incident now, and this adds to the threats its 'vulnerable' population is currently facing.
Conservation efforts for the porbeagle population have since been launched by organizations and researchers, but nature took a turn against them.
'Vulnerable' Porbeagles Hunted Down by Other Sharks, Tracker Swallowed
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Porbeagle sharks are now facing a hostile environment which further threatens its 'vulnerable' status, and according to Gizmodo, trackers from researchers revealed that they are being hunted down by larger, more dominant sharks.
Marine biologists, including an Arizona State University alumna, Brooke Anderson, revealed that this is the current state of the vulnerable porbeagles in the wild. It was revealed that this was the first time that researchers recorded shark predation against porbeagles.
Their recent study was published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, and it details the shark cannibalism incident it tracked which threatens the porbeagles. In one incident from 2021, a tracker embedded on the fin of a seven-foot pregnant female porbeagle sent peculiar data, only to be discovered that it was in the belly of a hunter.
Additionally, the momma shark also swam in warmer waters which was considered unusual.
The Porbeagle Shark Population is Slowly Diminishing
Porbeagle sharks, Lamna nasus, were already considered vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and according to Marine Bio, it is considered 'Endangered' in its Northwest Atlantic subpopulation and 'Critically Endangered' in its Mediterranean and Northeast Atlantic subpopulation.
It was revealed that porbeagles are diminishing because of poaching and losing habitat, but now, recent studies have exposed a new threat to their population, and it is because of the predatory behavior of other shark species.
Conservation Efforts for Endangered, Vulnerable
Animals have long lived on the planet even before the ancestors of modern humans, and they have evolved throughout these years to adapt to the environment, especially when Homo sapiens appeared. Land, sea, and air animals face these massive threats, especially to particular species, with the United Kingdom's puffins, Slavonian grebes, European turtle doves, and pochards deemed "vulnerable."
The famous Panthera leo Leo, also known as the "King" of the Jungle, which is common in India, as well as central and western Africa, has since been tagged as endangered. On the other hand, the Panthera leo melanochaita, also known as Simba's inspiration in Disney's The Lion King franchise, was also added to the list but tagged as threatened.
Many conservationists claim that human activities have threatened the lives and specific species' survival in the modern world, and it happens in the different domains of the planet. Now, porbeagle sharks are facing this issue, but it is not only from poachers and loss of habitat but what the tracker revealed to be a shark on shark predation, led by the more dominant shark species.