Scientists once thought the oceans were so vast there was little risk of marine species becoming extinct; they no longer believe that theory.<\/P><\/p>\n
Now Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, says the Earth may on the cusp of “a gathering wave of ocean extinctions.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Her alarming view is shared by many scientists, including Samuel Gruber, a University of Miami professor who has spent two decades studying lemon sharks that breed in the Bahamas.<\/P><\/p>\n
But the mangroves that provide food and protection for the sharks are being destroyed to make way for resort development.<\/P><\/p>\n
“At the end of my career, I get to document the destruction of the species I`ve been documenting for 20 years,” he told the Washington Post. “Wonderful.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Biologists note that of the 21 marine species that have become extinct in the past 300 years, 16 have occurred since 1972.<\/P><\/p>\n
Scientists blame a combination of the post World War II industrialization of the world’s fishing industry, a planet-wide boom in oceanfront development and global warming for causing the Earth’s fish populations to plummet.<\/P><\/p>\n
Source: science.monstersandcritics.com<\/SMALL><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Biologists note that of the 21 marine species that have become extinct in the past 300 years, 16 have occurred since 1972.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}