Last week, the world’s leading wildlife trade agreement increased protections for more than 70 species of sharks and rays. The move is a first for protecting shark and ray species from wildlife trade at the highest level.

In Uzbekistan on Friday, at a conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, more than 100 governments voted to protect declining shark and ray species. The agreement includes a full international commercial trade ban for oceanic whitetip sharks, manta and devil rays, and whale sharks.

Luke Warwick, director of shark and ray conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, called the new protections a “landmark,” adding that they represented “the first time there’s been recognition that some sharks and rays are wildlife, just like iconic terrestrial wildlife like elephants or rhinos.”

In just the past 50 years, humans have caused a steep drop in the number of sharks and rays that swim the open oceans. Overfishing has driven a decline of 71 percent in these oceanic species, according to a study published in the journal Nature in 2021. Sharks and rays are fished for their fins, gill plates, meat and liver oil. They are also frequently caught as incidental catch during long-line fishing for tuna or swordfish, a method that involves thousands of baited hooks.

Three years ago, at the previous CITES conference, some shark and ray species were listed on Appendix 2, which increased the percentage of the fin trade managed by CITES to 90 percent from about 25 percent. But more than 37 percent of shark and ray species are threatened with extinction, and many species continue to decline. CITES, which went into effect in 1975, is the only international agreement with the authority to restrict the international trade behind these declines.

CITES regulates and controls the international trade in certain species, which are listed in three appendices, depending on the level of protection needed.

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