Sharks on the decline, some species near extinction

( Note: In case the video doesn’t download properly, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-D4ntqtsB4 )

Many people experience the fear of being attacked and eventually killed by a shark while enjoying a day at the beach.

But, as The Washington Post article “Fish Story’s New Reality is that Man Bites Shark” explains, the truth is that in actuality, sharks kill an average of four people worldwide every year, while humans kill anywhere from 26 million to 73 million sharks annually.

“For most of human history, sharks have been seen as a threat to us. Only recently are we beginning to see we’re a threat to them,” said David Balton, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary for oceans and fisheries, in a recent interview, according to the article.

An international team of scientists came to this conclusion based on research that included the use of satellite tracking and DNA analysis. Among their findings, the fact that shark populations around the world have declined in great numbers during recent years.

For example, the article notes, in March, a team of Canadian and U.S. scientists calculated that "between 1970 and 2005, the number of scalloped hammerhead and tiger sharks may have declined by more than 97 percent along the East Coast, and that the population of bull, dusky and smooth hammerhead sharks dropped by more than 99 percent.”

The steep decline in shark population, according to the experts, is mostly due to shark hunting. This is because this predator’s fins are used to make what is called “shark-fin soup”, which is considered a delicacy in Asian countries and many other places around the world.

In this entry’s featured video, you will be able to see some of the atrocious methods that shark-hunters utilize to catch their prey. You can also observe a cruel practice called shark “finning”, which consists of slicing off a shark’s fins and tossing the animal back in the ocean to die.

If you’re interested in doing something to help with the efforts for shark conservation, you may consider actually adopting one of them. You can go to http://worldanimalfoundation.homestead.com/AdoptAShark.htmlvisit and adopt a shark from the World Animal Foundation.

You can also visit sharktrust.org, the Web site for Shark Trust, a marine charity established in the UK concerned with the plight of the shark on an international scale, and find out more about their adoption program. Of course, you may also contact any of the many other national and global organizations concerned with shark survival and do your part to help protect the sharks.