All species / Cetorhinus maximus

Cetorhinus maximus

Basking Shark · (Gunnerus, 1765)

Red List, global: EN; Endangered, 2021
First CITES listing: III; Appendix III, 2000, by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
CITES trade records: 50; 2001–2020 · exporter-reported
Unit dimensions: 2; reported separately, never summed
NAMMCO catch entries: none; NAMMCO reports a subset of marine mammals
Seizure records: 2; reported taxon matches

One of 43: each square a species, coloured by its latest global Red List category, this one ringed. Basking Shark is among the sharks.

In summary derived

Cetorhinus maximus, Basking Shark, is placed in family Cetorhinidae, order Lamniformes, class Chondrichthyes. It was first listed in Appendix III in 2000, by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The earliest CITES listing row the corpus holds for it is Appendix II, dated 2003, a later entry than the 2000 listing. The corpus records 1 dated listing row in total.

Its latest global Red List assessment is Endangered, published 2021. It carries 7 earlier global assessments on the current scale and 2 on scales that were superseded before the current categories and cannot be compared with them.

The corpus holds 50 exporter-reported CITES trade records for it, from 2001 to 2020, reported across 2 unit dimensions. The most frequently recorded term is carvings (12 records). The corpus holds no NAMMCO catch records for it. 2 seizure records are attributed to it, being those whose reported taxon matches the species.

Composed from 18 corpus fields, by template, with no model

species.class
species.family
species.order_name
species_catch.catch_total
species_iucn.is_global
species_iucn.status
species_iucn.year_published
species_listing.appendix
species_listing.listing_date
species_listing_event.appendix
species_listing_event.event_date
species_seizure.*
species_trade.dimension
species_trade.first_year
species_trade.last_year
species_trade.record_count
species_trade.reporter_type
species_trade.term

Each sentence is generated from the columns above and nothing else. The same corpus produces the same text every time. Where a field is absent the sentence is omitted rather than hedged.

Overview curated

Taxonomy entered by a named curator and versioned in the repository.

Class: Chondrichthyes
Order: Lamniformes
Family: Cetorhinidae
First CITES listing: 2000
Global Red List status: ENEndangered, assessed 2021

This taxonomy differs from the name CITES reports

Class: CITES reports Elasmobranchii; this site uses Chondrichthyes. CITES reports the subclass Elasmobranchii in its class field; Chondrichthyes is the class rank.

Content withheld pending expert review

8 narrative sections for this species were machine-drafted and are not shown. No subject expert has reviewed and signed them.

Trade derived

CITES Trade Database v2025.1, extracted 13 June 2025.

There is no single trade total

Quantities are reported per unit dimension, per traded term, and per reporting side. These are not additive: kilograms and individual animals have no common unit, a live animal is not a carving, and an importer report and an exporter report are two accounts of one shipment rather than two shipments.

Figures below are exporter-reported.

count in specimens: 44 records, 88%
mass in kg: 6 records, 12%

Records per dimension. Not additive across units.

Trade over time

Peak 10 records in 2004. Trade records per year, exporter-reported, every term and unit counted as records, not quantities.

Peak 11 specimens in 2004. Quantity of carvings, the term with most records (12), in specimens, exporter-reported. Other terms are in the tables below, each in its own unit.

count measured in specimens

44 of 50 records carry a quantity in specimens. CITES leaves the unit blank to mean a count of the term.

carvings12

specimens11

skins5

skin pieces4

leather products (large)3

bones2

fins2

bone carvings1

Top 8 of 12. Bars count trade records per term, not specimens, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in specimens.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	121 specimens	10	2008–2017	W
carvings	6 specimens	6	2001–2011	O
carvings	10 specimens	6	2004–2006	U
skins	10 specimens	4	2005	O
skin pieces	5 specimens	4	2004–2005	U
bones	2 specimens	2	2009–2020	O
leather products (large)	2 specimens	2	2005	O
fins	39 specimens	2	2007	W
specimens	5 specimens	1	2012	not recorded
bone carvings	1 specimen	1	2015	O
leather products (small)	1 specimen	1	2001	O
leather products (large)	1 specimen	1	2006	U

Showing the 12 term and source combinations with the most records, of 16.

mass measured in kg

6 of 50 records carry a quantity in kg.

fins3

meat3

Bars count trade records per term, not kg, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in kg.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
meat	3,555.4 kg	3	2005–2007	W
fins	805.6 kg	2	2009–2012	W
fins	9 kg	1	2006	O

CITES listings curated

CoP decisions, cross-checked against the appendix reported on trade records.

First listed on 2000-09-13, in Appendix III by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, from the CITES listing history. The table below holds the species' current listing entries, which begin later; earlier coverage is often under a higher taxon.

Date	Appendix	Annotation	Status
2003-02-13	II	none	earliest current entry

Convention on Migratory Species

Listed under CMS: Appendix I, Appendix II. Also covered by Sharks, which are separate instruments with their own annexes.

IUCN Red List derived

Assessment history. Scope is always stated: a regional assessment is not the species status.

This history crosses a criteria revision

Categories from before 2001 come from earlier Red List systems. Three kinds are kept apart.

LR/lc and LR/nt are the modern LC and NT under their old names, so they are plotted as those categories and the line runs through them: nothing changed but the wording.

LR/cd was discontinued with no successor. This project reads it as Near Threatened, following a published crosswalk between the old and new Red List systems, and the chart marks such a point hollow and names both codes, because placing a category is not the same as finding it published.

The pre-1994 codes (E, V, K, T and the rest) are not on the risk order at all, so they sit below the axis and the line breaks across them. A category change across a criteria revision is not a change in extinction risk, and none of these is scored as a movement: the ledger refuses every one of them at gate 3.

published global assessment
not on this scale (below the axis)

Vertical position is the IUCN risk order, not a measured quantity: the gaps between categories are equal on the page and not in nature. Anything that is not one of the nine modern categories carries no position on that order — Data Deficient, a superseded category, or a record that no assessment was made — so it sits below the axis and the line breaks across it rather than joining through. Each point names which it is. 8 global assessments are drawn at 7 positions: one position carries more than one assessment of the same category in the same year, and the table below lists them separately. The dashed step crosses the 2001 revision of the Red List criteria: the category codes on either side match, the criteria behind them do not, so the step is shown and not measured.

Category movement since listing: not scored. Gate 4: the baseline was published in 2000, before the 2001 criteria revision. The category code is on the modern scale but the criteria behind it are not. How this is defined and why some species are not scored

Year	Category	Meaning	Scope	Status
2021	EN	Endangered	Global	current for this scope
2019	EN	Endangered	Global
2019	EN	Endangered	Global	a republished version of the 2019 assessment
2016	EN	Endangered	Global
2015	EN	Endangered	Global
2009	VU	Vulnerable	Global
2000	VU	Vulnerable	Global
1996	VU	Vulnerable	Global
1994	K	Insufficiently Known (pre-1994; not a risk category)	Global
1990	K	Insufficiently Known (pre-1994; not a risk category)	Global

Reported catch derived

NAMMCO catch exports dated 11 June 2025. A reported zero is stored as zero, distinct from an unknown.

No NAMMCO catch records for this species. NAMMCO reports on a subset of marine mammals, so an absence here is expected for most species and does not mean no catch occurred.

Illegal trade seizures derived

Seizure records whose reported taxon resolves to this species.

What the seizure source records

2 seizure records name this species. Matching is on the taxon the source reported, case aside, and each record below shows the reported name, so a match that is not literal can be seen for what it is. Across the whole compilation, 225 of 919 rows match one of the 43 species and the rest name other taxa.

Quantities are unitless. The source gives no date or place, so the table shows the product and the reported taxon.

fin1

specimen1

Records per product, not a quantity.

Product	Reported as
fin	Cetorhinus maximus
specimen	Cetorhinus maximus

References withheld

Machine-proposed bindings. Shown only where an expert has signed the profile and the binding is live.

No references are recorded for this species: none is shown, and none was machine-proposed for review.

Timeline curated

Curated events. Those with no corroborating table in this database are marked.

Date	Event	Type	Corroboration
2024-06-11	CITES Trade Suspension	cites_suspension	curated
2021	IUCN Red List Assessment (2021)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2019-08-13	CITES Trade Suspension	cites_suspension	curated
2019	IUCN Red List Assessment (2019)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2016	IUCN Red List Assessment (2016)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2015	IUCN Red List Assessment (2015)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2009	IUCN Red List Assessment (2009)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2004-06-15	CITES Trade: carvings	cites_trade	checked against `cites_trade_records`
2003-06-15	CITES Trade: carvings	cites_trade	checked against `cites_trade_records`
2003-02-13	Listed in CITES Appendix II	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`
2001-06-15	CITES Trade: carvings	cites_trade	checked against `cites_trade_records`
2000	IUCN Red List Assessment (2000)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1996	IUCN Red List Assessment (1996)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1994	IUCN Red List Assessment (1994)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1990	IUCN Red List Assessment (1990)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`

Events marked curated are not matched by a row in a corroborating table, either because none applies or because the table holds no such row, and rest on the curator alone. They are shown, and marked, rather than presented as equivalent to a table-checked fact.