If you've never heard of shark finning before, consider yourself lucky. Finning refers to the act of catching a shark, slicing off its fins (while it's still alive) and then dropping its body back into the ocean. Most often, these fins are sold to China for their unique delicacy: shark fin soup. While the sharks bleed and sink to the ocean floor, fishermen are making thousands of dollars per day through the slaughter of these animals. If this information alone doesn't move you, here are some facts that will.
The shark population has declined by 90%.
A population study was conducted by researchers from the University of Queensland and Griffith University. Their results showed that in the past fifty years, the total population of sharks has decreased by 90%. This can be linked back to overfishing and pollution, but shark finning is what kills most of them. About 11,400 sharks are killed by fishermen per hour. Multiply that by 24, and you will get the number of sharks killed per day. Sickening, isn't it?
Shark finning is a cruel death.
While it is not significantly understood whether sharks feel pain, we do know that they can suffer. When a shark is finned, its body is left to sink to the bottom of the ocean floor. Without fins, a shark cannot swim; and without swimming, most sharks cannot breathe. These poor creatures will either bleed to death or suffocate, leaving other sea creatures to devour them while they're still alive.
Sharks keep the oceans healthy.
Sharks are apex predators, meaning they are at the top of the food chain in their habitat. Sharks do a lot of the "dirty work." They eat the sick and dying animals to make room for the strong, healthy ones to reproduce. They eat the dead creatures that would otherwise pollute the water. Without sharks, the entire food chain of the ocean could be damaged. Just remember: sharks guarantee healthy fish, and humans love to eat fish. What happens when all the fish are diseased and there are no sharks to weed them out?
Sharks don't reproduce often.
Sharks have long pregnancies, often longer than a human's- they can last anywhere from 9-12 months! The Greeneye Dogfish, however, has a gestation period of about 31 months- over two years! Most sharks only give birth every two years, and each birth yields an average of two to ten "pups" (baby sharks). On top of this, sharks grow slowly and take a long time to reach reproductive maturity. Because of finning, repopulation is extremely difficult to keep up with, and many of these misunderstood little guys are now on an endangered species list.
Sharks have survived over 450 million years.
That's right- they outlived the dinosaurs! The oldest shark fossils have been dated at about 450 million years old. Since then, the species has evolved to become the majestic predators we know them as. Because of their age, sharks are proven to have survived FIVE mass extinctions. Those extinctions didn't prove to be a setback, however- sharks are still at the top of the food chain. Obviously, nature wanted them here, otherwise, they would have died out with the Jurassic or Cretaceous extinctions. If humans singlehandedly kill them off, the results will be ultimately disastrous.
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