Galeocerdo cuvier | UAE National Red List of Marine Species: Reef-building corals, cartilaginous fishes and select bony fishes
Publication
Asessment status in full
Critically Endangered
Assessment status abreviation
CR
Assessment status criteria
A2bcd
Assessment rationale/justification
The Tiger Shark occurs throughout UAE waters. In the UAE, this species has historically been impacted by both targeted fishing and by-catch as well as habitat degradation and loss from coastal development. Catch in the UAE has declined by about 90% over the past three generation lengths. A series of conservation measures have been put in place to reduce shark fishing effort in UAE waters since 2008. It is apparently highly migratory, and has slow life history characteristics including low fecundity and a low annual rate of population increase. Considering this, the species has a low capacity to recover from even moderate levels of exploitation. It is especially susceptible to exploitation (target and bycatch) in many largely unregulated gill net, longline and trawl fisheries that operate within its range outside and surrounding UAE waters. Elsewhere in the Arabian Sea region, this species has also experienced documented declines (e.g., Iran, the Red Sea, Yemen, Pakistan and India). Some management measures are now in place in the Arabian Sea region, although domestic fisheries are likely to continue. Based on fish market surveys, fisher interviews, recorded levels of exploitation and decline in habitat quality, it is suspected to have declined by at least 80% over the past three generation lengths, or about 52 years. It is listed as Critically Endangered A2bcd. Monitoring of the species population trend moving forward should be a priority.
Assessment year
2019
Assessors/contributors/reviewers listed
UAE National Red List Workshop
Affliation of assessor(s)/contributors/reviewers listed on assessment
Government
IGO
Assessor affiliation specific
Government|IGO
Criteria system specifics
IUCN v3.1
Criteria system used
IUCN
Criteria Citation
IUCN. 2012. IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria: Version 3.1, Second edition. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. iv + 32pp pp. And IUCN. 2012. Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List Criteria at Regional and National Levels: Version 4.0. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK: IUCN. iii + 41pp.
Endemic to region
Not assigned
Endemism Notes
Is an endemic?: Not_assigned
Threats listed in assessment
In the UAE, this species has historically been impacted by both targeted fishing and by-catch, habitat degradation and loss from coastal development. Finning has been banned in the UAE, yet surveys indicate that some trade in the fins and meat of this species still occurs. Sharks are impacted by high levels of largely unmanaged and unreported mortality in target (for fins and their valuable meat) and bycatch fisheries. Marine habitats in the Gulf are experiencing high levels of disturbance and quickly deteriorating due to major impacts from development activities (including dredging and reclamation), desalination plants, industrial activities, habitat destruction through the removal of shallow productive areas and major shipping lanes (Sheppard et al. 2010). Corals in the UAE and Arabian Gulf have severely declined due to the increasing frequency of mass bleaching events caused by rising water temperatures, which is a consequence of climate change, as well as pervasive coastal development (Riegl et al. 2018, Burt et al. 2019).
Conservation Measures
Conservation measures:
Conservation measures notes:
Required conservation measures: