Why Should I Care About Sharks

• Here's Why?

  Over 100 million sharks are killed each year, and they are not able to reproduce fast enough to keep up with this level of fishing pressure. Most of the over-fishing is driven by the high demand for shark fins for shark fin soup - an Asian delicacy. It is also due to unintended by-catch from other fisheries and recreational shark fishing, which targets the reproductive females responsible for sustaining populations for their species
  
  To compound the problem of extreme fishing pressure, sharks reproduce very slowly. They take many years to reach maturity - up to 20 years for some species - have long gestation periods and give birth to relatively few young.

  
  
  Should I be afraid of sharks?

  Sharks are the apex predators of the oceans and deserve our respect. Our fear and ignorance of sharks, however, results in people either not caring about sharks or thinking that it's a good thing to kill them.
  
  The media perpetuates this fear and misunderstanding through sensational programming and hyped up news coverage. Sharks are generally portrayed as vicious man-eaters, when in fact shark fatalities are extremely rare.
  
  Most attacks are cases of mistaken identity and many are so minor that "attack victims" do not even need medical attention. For example, the following headline reads "Girl, 17, survives shark attack". Yet when you read the article, you see that her injury was treated with band-aids
  Girl-17-survives-shark-attack-in-Florida
  
  The following articles separate the truth from the hype:
  "The Truth About Sharks" by Dr. Samuel Gruber:
  www.oceanrealmsociety.com/thetruth.htm
  
  CNN: Survey: "Shark Summer' bred fear, not facts:
  www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/03/13/shark.study/
  
  To put things into perspective, your lifetime risk of drowning is 1 in 1,134 and from an air/space accident it's 1 in 5,051. The chance that you will be the unlucky victim of a fatal shark attack, however, is 1 in 3,748,067. There are actually more deaths on US beaches from people being smothered by collapsing sand holes than from shark bites!
  Source: "The Relative Risk of Shark Attacks to Humans Relative to Other Risks" from Ichthyology at the Florida Museum of Natural History:
  www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/attacks/relarisk.htm
  
  When a fatal shark attack does occur, it's always tragic and is devastating to the families of the victim. Our intention is not to trivialize their suffering. Nevertheless we must respect these majestic animals and understand their importance. Killing sharks out of fear or revenge is not only pointless, but is also damaging to the health of the planet.

  Why do we need sharks?

  As top predators, sharks help to manage healthy ocean ecosystems. Sharks as apex predators can regulate species abundance, distribution and diversity, which in turn can impact the health of marine habitats. Additionally, they provide essential food sources for scavengers and remove the sick and weak from populations of prey species. As the number of large sharks declines, the oceans will suffer unpredictable and devastating consequences - both ecologically and economically. (Source: Predators as Prey - Oceana 2008)
  
  For example:
  
  Declines in large shark populations on the East Coast of the US led to the collapse of North Carolina's century-old bay scallop fishery. (Source: Cascading Effects of the Loss of Apex Predatory Sharks from a Coastal Ocean - Ransom A. Myers - Dalhousie University - 2007).
  
  A study by Enric Sala of Scripps Institute of Oceanography suggests that the loss of sharks may have contributed to the decline of reefs in the Caribbean, most of which are now dominated by algae. (Source: New Scientist - April 23, 2005)
  
  Studies of remote, pristine ecosystems on the other hand, demonstrate the positive impacts of the presence of sharks, including greater biodiversity, larger numbers of fish and healthier sea grass beds in areas with healthy populations of sharks as compared to similar systems in which the sharks have been overfished. (Source: High apex predator biomass on remote Pacific Islands. Stanford University)
  
  Sharks are absolutely vital to maintaining the health of our marine ecosystems. Without them our oceans can't survive. And without the oceans, we can't survive. Sharks have inhabited our seas for over 400 million years and in less than two decades man has brought them to the brink of annihilation. The over-exploitation of sharks must stop or our oceans will die along with the shark!

  What can I do?

  • 1. Don't be a part of the problem! Educate yourself about sharks and tell your friends and family the truth about sharks as well.
  • 2. Don't eat shark fin soup or other shark dishes, and don't patronize restaurants that serve shark dishes.
  • 3. Read the labels on the supplements and cosmetics you purchase. Don't purchase any Shark Cartilage or Shark Liver Oil supplements. If you take a Fish Oil supplement, buy one that lists the source of the fish oil. If you take a Chondroitin supplement, check to make sure the source is not sharks.
    
    For cosmetics, if the product lists squalane as an ingredient and doesn't specify plant-based squalane or that it contains no animal products, then there's a very good chance that it's shark liver oil.
  • 4. Don't buy shark souvenirs like shark jaws. In many cases, fishermen kill these sharks just to make a trophy from the jaws and then just dump the body back into the ocean. If you see shark jaw souvenirs for sale in a store, ask the sales person about a very expensive item in the store and take it up to the counter to buy it. Then tell them that you just noticed that they are selling shark souvenirs and you can't purchase anything from a store that exploits threatened animals. Ask your friends to do the same. They'll get the message eventually!!
  • 5. Educate your local restaurants and health food stores about these issues as well. Shark Safe Network provides information on this site to help you.
  • 6. If you fish, don't kill sharks and don't participate in Shark Tournaments that kill sharks.
  • 7. Educate your friends who fish about the importance of sharks to the oceans. Many fishermen think that fewer sharks will mean more of other fish, but in reality the opposite is true!
  • 8. Join the Shark Safe Network and get involved in a campaign!!
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