Save the Sharks!

The movie Jaws came out the year I was born, and it scared the bejesus out of me when I saw it.  I know I'm not alone.  Since that I have no need for Discovery Channel's obsession with shark attacks.  Especially now, as a surfer, I do not want those images coursing through my mind.  A few years back, I was walking up the bluffs to watch the sunset at a nearby beach when I heard the sound of 'slapping' on wet sand.  The tide was way out, and by the water's edge was a beached baby shark struggling to survive.  I instinctively ran down to it, knowing it was my duty to help.  The writhing fish was three feet long, either a baby Great White or Salmon Shark.  A baby, but a baby with big teeth, and I knew it might bite the hands attempting to rescue it.  Pushing with driftwood was futile.

It had large, dark discs for eyes, and it's gills were desperate to breathe in water.  I grabbed it by its dorsal and tail fin, and launched it toward the deep blue.  It was super smooth, dense, and strong.  The third try was the charm, and it swam like a drunken sailor while regaining its bearings.  Then slowly it swam back out to sea, and disappeared.  I love all creatures, and feel that this was a blessing and great omen for us.  An onlooking sealion appeared beside himself with disbelief.

I became much more interested in sharks after that experience, and one evening I did tune-in to a Discovery Channel shark show.  It was about Sharkman, a guy named Mike Rutzen, who swims unprotected with sharks (even Great Whites), and touches, strokes, pets them, and also puts them into a sleep-like trance by gently touching their noses, demonstrating the sharks' tonic immobility reflex.  I could see and sense how brilliant and amazing they are, some were even friendly and playful. 

For over 400 million years sharks have been the ultimate survivors.  They have outlasted dinosaurs and ice ages.  Positioned at the very top of the oceanic food chain, sharks control two thirds of the planet by maintaining the biological balance in the ocean's ecosystem.  Now, humans prove to be their biggest predator and challenge. 

Over 100,000,000 sharks are senselessly slaughtered annually, at a rate of over 270,000 per day.  Not only are humans polluting sharks' habitat and over-exploiting their food sources (while our populations remain growing unchecked), but also targeting sharks for sport, catching them for their fins and jaws, catching and killing them in anti-shark nets, and in commercial long-lines and trawling nets. 

As an apex predator, shark populations are already vulnerable due to their slow growth, late maturity, long gestation, low reproductive output, and long life spans.  If mankind continues its current path, we will totally annihilate sharks, thereby setting off a chain reaction of natural disasters far worse than any in human history. 

Macho warriors find sport in venturing out into the last truly wild frontier to "conquer" an apex predator.  Sharks are not good eats due to high levels of urea in their tissues, therefore countless sharks are slaughtered only to become wall decorations, conversation pieces, bragging rites. 

Finning is a cruel, wasteful, unsustainable practice where sharks are caught on long-lines (miles of lines with baited hooks floating in the sea), and brought on board to have their fins hacked off while alive.  Then the mutilated, living animals are dumped back into the water where they die (fins are more profitable than the meat).  All of that to make colorless, odorless soup to exhibit wealth at weddings, and to supposedly endow people with virility and strength.

Like caviar, shark fin soup is considered a delicacy and a status symbol in some cultures.  One bowl of shark fin soup can fetch up to several hundred US dollars, and some fins can fetch thousands of dollars, depending on the rarity of the species.  What do the fins add to this dish?  Only an image and a thicker consistency. 

Shark jaws (the bigger the "better") are another wall ornament that fetch up to thousands of dollars.  A quick search on eBay reveals the magnitude of the shark market.  Shark body parts are also used to make "shark cartilage" pills, even though no scientific evidence exists to support the claims of their medicinal properties. 

Anti-shark nets have been set up around the world.  Not as impenetrable barriers to protect swimmers, but to passively kill-off sharks.  In fact, 90% of the sharks that are caught, are caught on their way back out to sea.  They were swimming with people all along.

Innumerable sharks are unintentionally caught by commercial fishing vessels practicing longlining and trawling.  With longlining 40-80 miles of lines are spooled out, 40,000 hooks are baited at a time,  in attempts to catch fish such as tuna or swordfish.  As you can imagine, those aren't the only creatures that get caught in this indescriminate practice.  Longlines catch turtles, dolphins, seals, birds, sharks, and more.  Trawling nets catch 15 tons of marine life per haul.

Humans aren't the only species on Earth, we just act like it.  Everything on Earth is alive with energy.  Everything on Earth has purpose.  Everything on Earth is connected.  What effects one will ultimately effect all.  What we do to the Earth we do to ourselves. 

Apex predators have a profound influence on the balance of organisms in a particular ecosystem.  Screwing with the top of the food chain can create drastic cascading effects on life as we know it.  It is important to remember how vital the functioning of the ocean's ecosystem is to Earth itself.  Phytoplankton, one-celled plants that live at the ocean's surface, collectively represent the largest quantity of vegetation on the planet, and consume more carbon dioxide than all the trees in our forests.  Half of the world's oxygen is created via phytoplankton photosynthesis.   The destruction of sharks could lead to the destruction of the grand lungs of the earth. 

Some bans on shark finning have been recently set up in Australia, US, New Zealand, and Mexico.  There is a current movement centered around uniting around a new view of sharks to conserve our oceans, and ultimately, human life on earth.  Conservationists like Shark Angels, Sea Shepherd, and Sharkwater are making a difference, however sharks are competing against Salmon, Whales, and other endangered marine creatures in the conservation ring, and they're certainly the least cuddly of the bunch. 

Sharks are feared and revered for their immense power, yet they pose such a tiny threat to humans.  Bee stings, snake bites, and falling coconuts are far more common causes of death (but please, leave the bees and snakes alone too).  Sharks don't even like to eat us.  If one takes a sample nibble, it is a simple case of mistaken identity, and they spit it out and swim away.  Very few humans happen to release their physical form after a shark takes a taste. 

Species range from the Whale Shark, the largest fish species known to man at up to 50 feet long who feeds mostly on phytoplankton, to the Cookie Cutter Shark, a bioluminescent fish up to 20 inches long who eats plugs of flesh off of its much larger prey.  Sharks have fine electromagnetic sensors in their noses.  Ultimately they can smell your aura.  I used to fear Jaws.  Now I want to save Jaws.  For more, check out this King Rat music video, read The Day All the Sharks Died, a powerful short story by Peter Benchley, and Shark Lady, a true and daring tale of how scientist Eugenie Clark dove into history.