Effects of fisheries upon non-target species have been historically underestimated, only relatively recent awareness has highlighted the importance of bycatch species conservation measures in order to maintain sustainable ecosystems and therefore traded species. Contradictorily, overfishing pressure has raised to meet human needs, and new markets have been opened to alternative food sources. Trading with shark and ray fins has become in one of the most profitable of them, hence, although pelagic elasmobranchs (slow life-history species long-raging) have been partially protected in some regions, bycatch remains poorly managed.
Here, we present evidence of these lack of management, underpinning global, regional and local historical trends for predicted trends, along with regional and local significant fishery effects onto different species, which might be affected at different level by. Strengthen data collection protocols, unifying databases sources and taking bycatch conservation measures will help to remediate expected stock collapses which might mean not just the loss of diversity but an increase of stock risk for traditional target marine pelagic species.
