How Many Sharks Are Killed Each Year? ~100 Million Annually, Reflecting the Scale of Global Fisheries Pressure on Sharks and Ocean Systems
A question about global scale and how we understand ocean use
Sharks are distributed across nearly all ocean regions and interact with a wide range of fisheries—from targeted catch in some regions to incidental bycatch in multi-species fisheries elsewhere.
Because of this, shark mortality is not recorded in a single system. It is distributed across multiple datasets, jurisdictions, and reporting frameworks.
To understand the total scale of this interaction, we need to bring those sources together.
This study does exactly that.
What this study actually does
In Global catches, exploitation rates, and rebuilding options for sharks, we integrated global fisheries datasets to estimate total shark mortality across all major sources of removal.
This included:
reported landings from global fisheries databases
estimates of unreported and undocumented catch
bycatch and discard mortality from fisheries operations
finning-related mortality estimates
species composition data and average body mass conversions
available stock assessment and population data
By combining these datasets, we developed a global estimate of total shark removal, expressed in both biomass and individual numbers.
The work was published in Marine Policy and co-authored by our research team, including Christine A. Ward-Paige and collaborators across fisheries science and marine ecology.
What the study shows
When global fisheries data are integrated across sources, a consistent pattern emerges:
Approximately 1.4 million tonnes of sharks and related species are removed from the ocean each year
This corresponds to roughly ~100 million individual sharks annually
We also estimate that average exploitation rates across shark populations fall in the range of ~6–8% per year.
When viewed alongside shark life-history characteristics—slow growth, late maturity, and relatively low reproductive output—these rates describe a level of pressure that strongly shapes population structure and recovery potential across many species.
Why this matters for ocean systems
Sharks play an important ecological role in marine ecosystems. As predators, they influence prey populations, movement behaviour, and broader food web dynamics.
At the scale described in this study, shark mortality reflects sustained interaction between fisheries and marine ecosystems across regions and sectors.
This has implications that extend beyond sharks themselves, including:
ecosystem structure and trophic balance
fisheries productivity and stability
coastal and offshore biodiversity patterns
marine economies linked to healthy ocean systems, including fisheries and tourism
In this sense, shark mortality is not only a species-specific metric—it is a reflection of how ocean systems are used globally.
The structural challenge this work highlights
A key contribution of this study is bringing together fragmented fisheries information into a unified global picture of shark removal.
Sharks are not consistently tracked as a single category in fisheries reporting systems. Instead, they appear across multiple datasets, often grouped broadly or incompletely recorded depending on region, gear type, and reporting requirements.
As a result, understanding total shark mortality requires integrating multiple independent data sources.
When this is done, a consistent global signal becomes visible.
What this means for management and monitoring
These findings are relevant to how shark populations are considered within fisheries and ocean governance frameworks.
They highlight the importance of:
consistent species-level reporting in fisheries systems
inclusion of bycatch and discard mortality in total catch estimates
integration of multiple data streams in ecosystem assessments
evaluation of cumulative impacts across fisheries, not just individual sectors
