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Shark Deaths Endanger Scallop Population
Robert E. Hueter, director of shark research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla., said scientists have warned about the effects of shark depletion for years but there have been few studies to back them up.
This report, he said, "demonstrates plausible links between the decline of sharks, the subsequent rise of their prey, and the resulting decline of those prey species' prey. You don't have to be a marine biologist to grasp this connection."
  Overfishing of powerful sharks _ a top predator in the ocean _ may endanger bay scallops, a gourmet delicacy. With fewer sharks to devour them, skates and rays have increased sharply along the East Coast and they are gobbling up shellfish, particularly bay scallops, researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science. (AP GRAPHIC) (AP) 
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"Scientists will now debate the specific numbers and correlations in this paper, and sadly, Dr. Myers will not be around for that debate," he said. Myers, 54, died Tuesday in Halifax.
Hueter, who was not part of the research team, said the "overall message is important and true: If we take out whole segments of ecosystems, especially top predators like sharks, the balance among species is toppled, and the effects cascade throughout the system. And some of those effects _ such as a negative impact on other important fisheries, as in the Myers study _ can be long-term and deleterious to human society."
Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, said scientists have known that the loss of the great sharks would ripple through the ecosystem in some way, but this is "the first study to show consequences with hard data."
Pikitch was not part of the research team, but the Pew Institute helped support the work.
Other funding came from the Sloan Census of Marine Life, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Killam Trust, North Carolina Fisheries Resource Grants Program, North Carolina Sea Grant and the National Science Foundation.
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