Who Is More Endangered?

Great white sharks, were catapulted into the public eye with the release of the film Jaws during the summer of 1975. The movie perpetuated the theme of sharks as villains with their 300 daggered-like teeth and deadened eyes since then many view them as villains and a predator to the human race. But most people don’t know the truth of the data and how many sharks attacks happen on a yearly basis. In 2017, The International Shark Attack File (ISAF) investigated 155 incidents of shark-human interaction worldwide. Here are the results:

Of the remaining 37 cases, 18 involved shark bites to marine vessels (“boat attacks”), 2 involved shark-inflicted post-mortem bites (“scavenge”), 4 cases which the shark-human interaction couldn’t be confirmed from the data, 12 cases were regarded as “doubtful”, and 1 case involving a diver in a public aquarium.

The U.S. Had The Most Unprovoked Attacks in 2017

Sharks Are Endangered Species

Every year, it’s estimated that 100 million sharks are pulled from our oceans, either from commercial fishing or for “finning,” when the shark fins are sliced off and sold in the shark fin soup trade. Shark fin soup has initially been a delicacy for the wealthy in certain parts of Asia (mostly China and Vietnam), but since the Chinese economy has boomed over the past several decades, the dish has become available to a broader portion of the public. The consumption of shark fin soup has more than doubled between 1985 and 2001. Causing the hunt for sharks to increase rapidly to meet the demands of the shark fin soup market. This overfishing for sharks is the main reason for the massive increase in shark deaths per year. Sharks also take a long time to mature and produce little offspring.

Sharks play a vital part in keeping humans and other organisms alive on earth. We need sharks to main our ocean ecosystems as top predators. Without sharks the ocean food web would be out of whack, smaller prey species will increase in population and would eventually wipe out the aquatic vegetation that releases oxygen into the ocean. The ocean provides Earth with about 70% of the world’s oxygen, so it is crucial we keep sharks around. At 100 million deaths against six each year, it’s not a fair fight. Because at the end of the day we don’t need shark fin soup to survive, we need oxygen.