The number of sharks in the Mediterranean has fallen by 97 percent in the last 200 years, putting the sea’s ecological balance at risk, a report released on Wednesday said.

The report, by the Washington-based Lenfest Ocean Program, used records such as fishermen’s logs, shark landings, museum specimens and visual sightings to estimate the number and size of the Mediterranean sharks over the last two centuries.

There was only enough data on five of the 20 big shark species present in the Mediterranean to be useful to the study — the hammerhead, thresher, blue and two species of mackerel shark, which averaged a decline of 97 percent.

“It will have a major impact on the ecosystem because large predatory sharks are at the top of the food chain,” said Francesco Ferretti, the report’s lead author.

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