Every year sharks kill a handful of people. Every year people kill tens of millions of sharks — and the toll kept climbing even as finning bans spread across the world.
Sharks killed by fisheries in 2019, the best global estimate yet — up from at least 76 million in 2012. Counting sharks never identified to species, the figure reaches about 101 million. That is roughly 150 a minute.
Worm et al., Science 2024 · ISAF 2025 · per-minute figure is our calculation
Of 1,199 sharks, rays and chimaeras assessed, 391 are Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered — double the count from 2014. Overfishing is the main driver.
Source: Dulvy et al., Current Biology 2021 (IUCN Red List assessment of 1,199 chondrichthyans). Bar widths to scale.
Across 18 oceanic shark and ray species tracked since 1970, abundance has dropped by nearly three-quarters, while relative fishing pressure on them rose eighteenfold.
Source: Pacoureau et al., Nature 2021. Endpoints are measured; the straight line between them is drawn for clarity and does not show the year-by-year path.
On a logarithmic scale, where each gridline is ten times the last, human deaths from sharks barely leave the axis.
Sources: Worm et al., Science 2024; Clarke et al., Ecology Letters 2006 (bar shows the 73M upper bound); International Shark Attack File, Florida Museum 2025. 2023 saw 69 unprovoked bites and 10 deaths.
Between 2012 and 2019, anti-finning laws spread more than tenfold — but they regulate how sharks are landed, not how many are caught. Retention bans and regional fishing bans showed more success.
Bars start at zero: a 5% rise on a very large base.
Share of the ~1.1 billion sharks caught, 2012–2019.
Source: Worm et al., Science 2024 (data covering an estimated 1.1 billion sharks caught by fisheries).
Share of each group in a threatened Red List category.
Source: Dulvy et al., Current Biology 2021. Bars on a linear 0–100% scale.
Sharks mature late and bear few young, so populations take decades to rebuild once they crash.
sharks from threatened species killed by fisheries in 2019.
Worm et al. 2024oceanic shark and ray species now threatened with extinction.
Pacoureau et al. 2021for a female Greenland shark to reach maturity; it may live 272+ years.
Nielsen et al., Science 2016the number of threatened chondrichthyans versus the 2014 assessment.
Dulvy et al. 2021The 2024 data suggest retention bans and science-based catch limits reduce deaths; finning bans alone did not.
Shark meat is often sold under other names. Ask suppliers for species and origin, and skip shark fin.
Most deaths happen in coastal fisheries — where marine protected areas and local bans can be enforced.
As top predators, sharks help keep ocean food webs in balance. The fear runs one way; the danger runs the other.
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