Extinction Declared
A species of ray, so rare it has only ever been recorded once back in the late 1800s, has been declared extinct after an assessment b
A species of ray, so rare it has only ever been recorded once back in the late 1800s, has been declared extinct after an assessment by an international team led by Charles Darwin University (CDU). The loss of the Java Stingaree, a small relative of stingrays, is the first marine fish extinction as a result of human activity.
This news comes as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released its updated Red List of Threatened Species.
The Java Stingaree (Urolophus javanicus) was known only from a single specimen collected in 1862 from a fish market in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The team conducted new modeling encompassing all available information on the species which has revealed the Java Stingaree as extinct.CDU Ph.D. Candidate and lead assessor, Julia Constance said a range of issues had contributed to the Java Stingaree's disappearance.
"Intensive and generally unregulated fishing is likely the major threat resulting in the depletion of the Java Stingaree population, with coastal fish catches in the Java Sea already declining by the 1870s," Ms Constance said.
