Once Predators Now Prey

Imagine you’re peacefully swimming in the ocean and you are suddenly face-to-face with a 15 foot great white shark. What would you do? Try to flee as quickly as possible? Well the shark is probably more scared of you than you are of him. 

For many years, sharks have been a common fear of the human race. Now the tables have turned and humans are endangering sharks. Commercial shark finning, chemical pollution, and shark nets are three of the many acts humans are doing to the sharks that are pushing them towards extinction. Florida museum.edu states,”Commercial shark fishers use methods that allow them to catch large quantities of sharks to be sold at market.” This mass overfishing is a major cause for shark being endangered.

 Sharks-world.com says every year there are around 100 sharks that die due to our overfishing for a soup that is a delicacy in Asia. Their fins are cut off and their dead carcasses were thrown back into the ocean. Sharks grow slowly and it is harder for them to reproduce fast, which makes them vulnerable to overfishing.

These dangerous creatures are a huge part of the ocean ecosystem and too valuable to the other organisms to lose to extinction. “Sharks, not mankind, are the species in danger, the animals now being driven rapidly towards extinction.” – Sharks of The World (Compagno 2005)