thINK Assignment # 1 : The Little Mermaid.

Ever since the critically acclaimed, 70s hit thriller "Jaws" came out, people have had an irrational fear of sharks. An irrational fear that, ironically, seems to appear completely rational - after all, with up to five rows of arrowhead-sized teeth and a tail with enough muscles in it to snap your arm in half with one good whomp, sharks are easily the most lethal and terrifying entities lording over your local summer resort area, right?

The answer your looking for is no. In reality, you are more likely to die from a jellyfish sting, lightning, or a falling coconut than a shark attack. 

I actually read this in a pamphlet I fished out of a stack of postcards inside a Florida boutique (where I'm vacationing this summer). The pamphlet itself was titled IRONY: The Plight of the Great White. Just that morning, I had stepped out on the beach to see a sign nailed into the sand, baring the words SHARK FEEDING HOURS: 4:00-5:00 A.M & 7:00-8:00. P.M. I took the pamphlet with me, and did some additional research on other species of sharks as well.

What I discovered was both astounding, and grisly. I will first explain with some figures: This year, approximately 4 people in the world will die from shark attacks. On the other hand, 104,000,000 sharks will die at the hands of humans this same year. 78 million of those sharks will be killed solely for their fins, a process which is preformed as follows; the shark is netted and dragged on deck, upon which each of it's fins are cut off as it still breathes. It is then thrown back, alive, where it will sink to the bottom of the ocean floor, unable to move, and then die from blood loss and/or starvation in the following days. Shark fin soup is a popular dish in Asian Countries, where the shark fin is falsely believed to have health benefits upon consumption, such as sexual performance enhancement or cancer treatment (incorrect). 

The irony of the situation is that due to all the pollution we dump into the ocean, the sharks and other apex predators like dolphins and whales have accumulated a dangerous level of toxins, particularly toxins such as mercury. Nowadays, eating animals like sharks can cause mercury poisoning, which will not only cause nerve damage and eventual mental retardation, but also decrease your sexual performance. 

So. 

How this applies to YOU: 

Sharks are an essential part of our ecosystem. They've been around for 420 million years, and the balance of ocean life has evolved to be entirely dependent upon them. Without sharks to eat fish on the lower food chain, such fish will breed out of control and eat up all the world's plankton, which is needed to produce nearly half of the world's clean oxygen (the other half being produced by the rain forests that we're sawing down around the equator). If sharks were to go extinct today, pollution of the world's air could escalate to disastrous levels within months. Not decades, not years, months. Imagine breathing from an belching exhaust pipe. 

Sharks only produce 1-2 pups per year. If we continue to hunt them at the rate we are now, they will go extinct. As of right now, there are only 3,500 Great White sharks left in the ocean, making them even more endangered than the Siberian Tiger. 

How you can help:

Educate people! If the population knows that eating shark could potentially poison them - as it was most likely illegally fished out of the sea and therefore unchecked for lethal diseases like mercury poisoning - then they will be less inclined to eat shark, which will decrease the market for shark fins, and eventually break down the illegal trade and help stop the endangerment of sharks.