If sharks were baby seals, our oceans could be saved

by Kaitlin | March 30, 2007 at 01:55 pm | 2119 views | 3 comments

The shark population is diminishing, and has been on a steady decline since 1970, if not before. This is largely due to the popularity of shark meat and fins, which has in recent years spread to North America in a big way (coincidentally, Jaws was released in 1975...just sayin').

The new study concluded that the original estimates of declines in big sharks had been too conservative.

Now the population of scalloped hammerhead and tiger sharks may have fallen by more than 97 per cent since 1970, while bull, dusky and smooth hammerhead sharks are down by more than 99 per cent.

Now, sharks are one of the most ancient species in the world. This
population drop, which has happened in the equivalent of a millisecond of their
existence--is very significant, yet this CBC story is the first I've
heard of this crisis in mainstream news media. And I'm pretty positive
that the story only broke because of the new movie Sharkwater, which
illustrates how the loss of sharks is devastating for the entire ocean
ecosystem.

The apathy towards the shark is understandable--I mean, they're ugly and could eat you; no big-eyed furry white balls of fluff here--but the fact that the shark population has been allowed to basically disappear with little or no attention is shocking to me. There have been hundreds of protests for seal hunting; pictures of cute baby seals about to be clubbed have inundated our consciousness, and big celebs have traveled to the ice floes of northern Canada to protest the hunt. I'd like to see Paul McCartney throw the same kind of muscle behind a Great White.

The seal hunt is guided by quotas determined by the input of a number of interest groups, including environmentalists. They may not always be absolutely spot on with their numbers, but at least there is a process. No such international process exists for shark hunts.

As for cruelty--shark hunts are often conducted by netting the shark, pulling it on board a boat, cutting off fins and useful meat while the shark is still alive, and throwing the bleeding shark back to die.

The shark population directly contributes to the ecosystem of the planet's oceans; should they continue to die off, our oceans are in for a complete ecosystem breakdown. Yet no one is talking about this.

Let me say it again: There are only 3% of the sharks there were 40 years ago. Should the decline continue at this rate, it would take only a few more years for sharks to completely die off.

I have to wonder--if sharks looked more like baby seals, would activists be lining up behind rows of coffins for dead Hammerheads, too? Would people carry signs saying "I'd rather eat lentils than shark fin soup?"

Would anyone care, at all, if the last shark died tomorrow?

What if that shark was marketable as a stuffed animal?

Flag this story

Upload

Make your good story a great story. Click here to add your photos & video to this story.

Crowd Power

Scan the web to add photos and videos to this story or add them from the NowPublic Archive.

chaz

at 16:50 on March 30th, 2007

Those are some big percentages?

Can they even be finding one another if only 1% of the 1970 population exists,
1% that means maybe 1/2% females, we can't find a boat in the ocean. How can so few sharks find one another?
Won't that create a 0% reproductive rate?

How long do they live, it should be zero alive soon.

I keep seeing them on National Geographic's TV they look newer than 1970's film.
On top of that I don't know a single person who eats shark.
I love seafood, I don't eat sharks, but if Garlic crabs were down by 97% I'd think me and my friends did that.

Over 2% loss of population per year on average, those sharks will all be gone in 2 more years?
I live near the water and several people per year get bitten, it's still more likely than getting hit by lightening.

I'm afraid with those percentages you've only written their epitaph.

matte

at 01:22 on April 1st, 2007

The poulation of the grey nurse shark onthe eastern Australia coast has reached the point where they are now listed as a critically endagered species - where hundreds could be found lolling about in what were called 'shark gutters (clefts in rocks) there are now none. In NSW the TOTAL population has been estimated at just 292 sharks.

There are serious moves underway on captive breeding (using test tube technology) and potential release programs.

So yes, the populations are down to 1% in some species - and they find each other just like if only 1% of humans survived, by congregating in the best places.

Shark fin is a huge fishery (illegal) in Australian waters for the Asian and East Asian markets. You can find dried shark fin in any Asian store and look closely at the fish and chip shop menu - you are likely to find shark there, albeit under a different name. (Flake here in Aust.)

Resources

http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/grey-nurse.html

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/189398/australia_seeks_to_breed_testtube_sharks/

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1384272.htm

A. R. (not verified)

at 22:11 on July 23rd, 2008

Anyone who buys seafood is "unknowingly" supporting the overfishing & possibly the shark fin industry--or rather, sometimes in most cases, causing a shark to be killed all for the sake of being considered bycatch & just thrown back out into the ocean, whether with fins or not. either way, its ridiculous to say that someone is that closed minded to only think that the only way you can add to the damage is if you physically "eat" a piece of shark meat. Think about it, think really hard...maybe one day you'll find the answer within yourself.