Studies on tagged great white sharks suggest there may be only a few thousand left. ALAMY

By Steve Connor Saturday, 20 February 2010 The number of great white sharks may have fallen below the number of tigers, one of the world’s most endangered terrestrial species that benefits from a huge effort to save it from extinction. Like tigers, great whites are a top predator and, like tigers, they have suffered in recent years from habitat destruction and hunting. But unlike tigers, great white sharks get little public sympathy, said Dr Ronald O’Dor, senior scientist at the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year study into ocean wildlife. “We hear an awful lot about how endangered tigers are but apparently great white sharks are pretty close to the same level. Some people say, ‘I don’t care, they eat people’, but I think we have to give them a little space to live in,” Dr O’Dor told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego. …

Great whites more threatened than tigers