The maximum intrinsic rate of population increase (r_max) of the Greenland Shark is 0.032 year⁻¹ which is nearly half the lowest r_max previously calculated for any shark or ray. There have been target fisheries for this species for its for liver oil since the 13th century with an increase in fisheries since the 17th Century (one generation length). Target fishing pressure increased up to the 1900s, ending in the 1940–1960s with the development of synthetic oils. Since then, it has been taken as discarded bycatch of demersal trawl, longline, and gillnet fisheries with approximately 3,500 individuals caught each year in the Northwest Atlantic, Arctic Ocean and Barents Sea. A population reconstruction, based on catch records, reveals that the Greenland Shark has been declining since the early 1600s with steepest declines beginning in the early 1800s through to the 1940s whereupon target fisheries were ended. Since then there is ongoing mortality from bycatch, but the overall fishing mortality is significantly reduced but is close to a level that may cause a decline, depending on bycatch survival rates and population generation length and resilience. The Greenland Shark was estimated to have declined by 57% in the 420 years since the 1600s, but is likely to have increased by 3% in the past century (1920–2020). The global estimated population reduction is 59% over the equivalent of three generation lengths (450 years), but this value could range from 11.7–72.9 depending on whether the generation length is shorter (50–75 years) or longer (274 years). The historic and current catch levels are uncertain, in particular the population reconstruction is likely to be highly sensitive to the catch of adults versus juveniles and post-release survival rate. Most catches seem to comprise juveniles, which might be more sustainable, but the abundance of adults seems very low and uncertain. Further, climate-change induced reduction in Arctic sea ice is providing greater access for fishing fleets and there is a projected loss of Arctic sea ice by 50% over the next 100 years. Taken together, the long history of fishing, ongoing exploitation (albeit at significantly lower levels than historically), and an extremely conservative life history, and climate change impacts of declining Arctic sea ice, it is suspected that the Greenland Shark has undergone a population reduction of 30–49% over the last three generations (450 years). Therefore, the Greenland Shark is assessed as Vulnerable.