The IUCN has declared the first ever marine fish extinct after an assessment led by Charles Darwin University (CDU) experts. Photo: Edda Aßel, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
As a whole, humans are decidedly bad for the other animals we share the planet with. Our never-ending hunt for things that make our lives as easy as possible have dire consequences, and it has recently been announced that the Java stingaree has become the first marine fish species to go extinct as a result of human activity.
Its extinction was declared in December by scientists at Charles Darwin University (CDU), Australia, and it came after an update to the Red List of Threatened Species published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Java stingaree was a cute little creature. A kind of ray that only grew to about the size of a plate, it was incredibly rare. According to IFLScience, the only known specimen of one was from a fish market in Jakarta that was found way back in 1862.
“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,” said Julia Constance, CDU PhD Candidate and lead study assessor, in a statement. “The northern coast of Java, particularly Jakarta Bay where the species was known to occur, is also heavily industrialized, with extensive, long-term habitat loss and degradation. These impacts were severe enough to unfortunately cause the extinction of this species.”
The team that finally decided the Java stingaree was no longer for this Earth looked at as much information about the species as they could find. After poring over countless surveys and monitoring project data, they felt confident that that the Java stingaree has become the first marine fish to go extinct due to human activity.
“A range of fish landing sites along the northern coast of Java and across Indonesia have been monitored extensively but they have not recorded the Java stingaree,” said CDU PhD Candidate Benaya Simeon. Simeon studies threatened rays in Indonesia. “The Java stingaree was a unique dinner plate-sized ray with no similar species in Java and the fact it has not been found during innumerable surveys confirms its extinction.”
