One-quarter of grouper species being fished to extinction

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - 15:30 in Biology & Nature

The critically endangered Atlantic goliath grouper, Epinephelus itajara, is from the subtropical and tropical Atlantic. Groupers, a family of fishes often found in coral reefs and prized for their quality of flesh, are facing critical threats to their survival. As part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission, a team of scientists has spent the past ten years assessing the status of 163 grouper species worldwide. They report that 20 species (12%) are at risk of extinction if current overfishing trends continue, and an additional 22 species (13%) are Near Threatened. These findings were published online on April 28 in the journal Fish and Fisheries.

Read the whole article on Biology News Net

More from Biology News Net

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net