Overfishing in the Canary Islands just with the 90% marine species.

Until the 90% marine species of the Canary Islands have been lost in the course of the last forty years as a result of overfishing.

They have warned Ricardo Haroun and Jose Juan Castro, members of the research group Biodiversity and Conservation at the University of Las Palmas.

“We is the 10% of those who were in 1970. Although there is control of this activity, is not sufficient, It is necessary to increase from the point of view of quantity” -researchers say.

Haroun and participate in Castro Poseidon, citizen science program driven by the ULPGC in which anyone can provide data marine species seen in Canary Islands, in order to record and evaluate the changes that are happening at the level of ecosystems and communities as a result of human action (fishing, destruction or alteration of habitats…) and climate change.

Ricardo Haroun described the observations are developing the contributors very valuable for research and conservation of marine biodiversity in the Canary Islands. “Not only allows us to know what, where and when they are different species, but also detect what no longer seen at a time of the year or in a particular area” -he said.

“This type of information to detect changes the distribution and abundance of species, whether seasonal or interannual”, He said the co-director of the Poseidon program.

According to researcher José Juan Castro, coordinator scientific validation of the Poseidon program, in the last six months they have been counted ten to twelve new species thanks to the cooperation of citizens. “They are emerging species like the surgeon who does anything was very anecdotal, and now there have been catches 40 o 50 Melenara kilos of these species were not here. Thanks to such records can see the expansion that is taking these species and how they are being distributed”.

In addition, the Poseidon program has launched a specific initiative on the cherubs, a species of shark in the Canaries background only is having ability to reproduce and to maintain stable populations, according advanced Haroun.

The Zoological Society of London and ULPGC have presented a joint project for the conservation of the angelote in the Islands. “The last stronghold of this species in Europe is located in the Canary Islands, although here it is threatened”, He said Castro.