Facts About The Great Barrier Reef

Shark Facts: Save Them From Becoming Soup

(SHARKS / OCEAN CONSERVATION) While Discovery Channel’s shark week tends to show the stronger, sometimes terrifying side of sharks, they do have a soft underbelly, so to speak. Sharks are natural predators necessary for a healthy ocean, and they’ve become victims of finning. Here’s everything you need to know about sharks and the laws meant to protect these powerful, amazing fish from becoming a mere bowl of soup. — Global Animal ’s Andy Samberg has been getting viewers hyped, in California this year the excitement is accompanied by the global tidal wave of action to protect these fascinating, and critically important, creatures.

Hollywood movies aside, the truth is that humans are a far greater threat to sharks than they are to us. That’s why ocean advocates around the world are shining a spotlight on a deadly practice that is causing shark populations to plummet worldwide: shark finning.

Sharks are one of our oceans’ top predators, keeping the entire ecosystem balanced and in check. They are an essential component of the food web, and are vital to the health of our oceans. Studies have shown that reduction in one species can have detrimental, long-lasting effects on not only other species, but on entire ecosystems and local and regional economies.

Animals at the top of the food chain, such as sharks, have few natural predators, are slow to mature, and have very few young. Some sharks take up to 25 years to reach sexual maturity, have a long gestation period (upwards of a year), and only have a few offspring in the end. All together, that means that sharks are extremely sensitive to fishing pressures, and are slow to recover from overfishing.

The numbers speak for themselves. Many shark species have declined in population by more than 90% in the last 50 years. Some species may have declined by as much as 97-99% in the last 35 years. In other words, as few as 1 out of 100 may be left of some species.

While sharks are often caught accidentally (called by-catch), a global market exists for shark fins, the main ingredient in shark fin soup. Shark fins can fetch upwards $600 a pound, putting this critical species at the hands of human profit seeking.

The demand for shark fins is what drives almost all shark deaths. And because shark meat isn’t generally consumed, after their fins are cut off, sharks are usually thrown back into the water. Unable to swim and bleeding to death, they suffer a slow and torturous death.