The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has recently revised the status of some 260 species of sharks, rays, mantas and other elasmobranches and has corroborated that only in 77 cases is there no imminent threat as yet, while insufficient data has been compiled on another 64 species to make an assessment. However, their greatest concern is that 8 species are already regarded as being in a critical state and 17 are endangered.
 
Despite having signed an agreement and having pledged to develop it, European countries still have not drawn up the FAO's International Plan of Action on the Conservation and Management of Sharks (IPOA-sharks). In this case, we are not only talking about overexploitation or poor management, but about the critical danger of extinction of certain species of shark, sawfish and rays, something that we believed could never happen to marine animals like fish.

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
www.fao.org
 
The World Conservation Union (IUCN)
http://www.iucn.org/

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