Are the biggest fish getting smaller?

A new paper on the whale shark population at Ningaloo Reef in Australia has just been published online. The study uses over 10 years worth of sighting to show a decline of almost two metres in the average length of the sharks using the area and a concurrent decline in the number of sightings. Scary stuff. The researchers suggest that overfishing is the most likely cause of these rapid changes in population composition.

See also a recent interview with Dr Mark Meekan from the Australian Institute of Marine Science about this paper.