Alen Soldo about sharks in the Adriatic sea

Sharks are top predators in marine ecosys tems, meaning they have few natural enemies and feed on animals below them in the food chain. Sharks limit the abundance of their prey, which then affects the prey of those animals, and so on in the chain, whereby sharks directly or indirectly affect all levels of the food chain and help maintain the structure of healthy ocean ecosys tems. Although our sea is not as big as the world's oceans, the Adriatic is home to many marine species, including sharks. In order to find out more about the threat of sharks in our waters, their vulnerability, but also their extreme importance, we talked to Alen Soldo, a professor from the Department of Marine Studies at the University of Split, who explained to us the current state of sharks in the Adriatic and how one domestic private company became a rare example in their preservation. According to the results of that work, we know that 60 species of cartilaginous fish live in the Adriatic occasionally or permanently, of which 33 species are sharks, 26 rays and one species of the so-ca lled sea rat. Unfortunately, although this number is relatively large, because in the entire Mediterranean we have a total of 88 recorded species, which means that 68 percent of all Mediterranean cartilaginous species live in the Adriatic, there is also a very alarming fact behind it, which is that three species are considered regional extinct because no one has seen them in the Adriatic for several decades. Photo: Srećko Niketić/PIXSELL Article downloaded from: https://www.vecernji.hr/

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