Tuesday December 2, 2025
Oceanographic —
A sweeping new survey of shark and large predator populations across the Eastern Tropical Pacific has revealed that some of the world’s highest shark abundances – including critically endangered scalloped hammerheads – thrive around the isolated marine protected areas of the Galapagos, Malpelo, Clipperton, and Revillagigedo islands.
Meanwhile -and by stark contrast – coastal marine protected areas (MPAs) in the same region show signs of severe depletion, with large predators largely absent.
The study – published last week in the scientific journal Plos One – has been likened by the researcher Dr Pelayo Salinas-de-León, principal investigator at the Charles Darwin Foundation and senior author of the study, to a “window into the past” in which sharks and large predatory fish are “the norm and not the exception.”