With Shark week kicking off on the Discovery Channel, humans get to find a greater connection with sharks. Yet usually this connection is a bad one, creating fear among humans with stories of sharks attacking boats, and mythes of huge sharks such as Megalodon, which haven't even been proved to exist.
Looking at the statistics of shark related human deaths, you should be more scared of a mosquito than of a shark. In fact you are three times more likely to die from a vending machine than a shark. (So be careful next time you go to get a soda or some candy, those things are dangerous.)
It is estimated 11,417 sharks are killed per hour. Approximately 100 million from anywhere to 273 million sharks are killed annually by humans. Sharks are victims of bycatch by commercial fishing vessels, trophy catches and finning for delicacies such as shark fin soup.
Shark finning is the practice of removing the sharks fins after it has been caught in a fishery. The fins are kept and the body of the shark is typically disposed back into the sea, often while the shark is still alive. Unable to swim or pass water across its gills, causing the sharks to die from suffocation, blood loss or predation. This means 95% of the carcass goes to waste. Only the fins are kept because shark fins are now among the most expensive seafood items in the world with retail values of hundreds of dollars per pound.
Sharks play a very important role in the Oceans in ways that an average fish does not. Sharks are virtually at the top of every part of every food chain in the ocean. In that role, they keep populations of other fish healthy and in proper proportion for their ecosystem in the ocean which is the very foundation of life.
So when you're watching shark week and maybe tweeting about it, make sure to throw in some facts and awareness about shark being unjustly killed. They may be predators to fish, mammals, and very few humans who have been mistaken for other mammals, but have become prey to us. It's humans who are killing drastic amounts of sharks, taking their fins, and letting them drown on the sea floor while their fins are being eaten as soup in fine dining.
Shark week might bring some awareness to the problem, but just something to think about. Hundreds of millions of sharks being killed by humans might be a little more important than Michael Phelps racing a shark on television.
Looking at the statistics of shark related human deaths, you should be more scared of a mosquito than of a shark. In fact you are three times more likely to die from a vending machine than a shark. (So be careful next time you go to get a soda or some candy, those things are dangerous.)
It is estimated 11,417 sharks are killed per hour. Approximately 100 million from anywhere to 273 million sharks are killed annually by humans. Sharks are victims of bycatch by commercial fishing vessels, trophy catches and finning for delicacies such as shark fin soup.
Shark finning is the practice of removing the sharks fins after it has been caught in a fishery. The fins are kept and the body of the shark is typically disposed back into the sea, often while the shark is still alive. Unable to swim or pass water across its gills, causing the sharks to die from suffocation, blood loss or predation. This means 95% of the carcass goes to waste. Only the fins are kept because shark fins are now among the most expensive seafood items in the world with retail values of hundreds of dollars per pound.
Sharks play a very important role in the Oceans in ways that an average fish does not. Sharks are virtually at the top of every part of every food chain in the ocean. In that role, they keep populations of other fish healthy and in proper proportion for their ecosystem in the ocean which is the very foundation of life.
So when you're watching shark week and maybe tweeting about it, make sure to throw in some facts and awareness about shark being unjustly killed. They may be predators to fish, mammals, and very few humans who have been mistaken for other mammals, but have become prey to us. It's humans who are killing drastic amounts of sharks, taking their fins, and letting them drown on the sea floor while their fins are being eaten as soup in fine dining.
Shark week might bring some awareness to the problem, but just something to think about. Hundreds of millions of sharks being killed by humans might be a little more important than Michael Phelps racing a shark on television.
Written by Ross