Saving Ourselves – Shark Hunting

Two-thirds of world’s surface is water, and over 80% of life on Earth lives in the ocean. Ocean plays a main role in regulating climate and feeding much of the planet. But in past a hundred years people were destroying the balance in the ocean and the ecosystem. One of the major activities is illegal shark poaching. Every year 30 to 70 million sharks are killed to support a growing worldwide trade in their fins and other products. Now, more than three hundred species of sharks are endangered.

Shark-finning became a profits industry due to the increasing demand for shark-fin soup in Asia. “One pound of fin is worth more than $200US and the shark-fin industry is a billion-dollar juggernaut. ”(Sharkwater) The shark-fin soup had been around for centuries, but only in the last two decades that it boomed in popularity. It is a symbol of wealth, and served as a sign of respect. Sharks-fins soup is a delicacy in Asia, which is utterly ludicrous given that the fins themselves are tasteless and merely add texture. Yong) And people believe that sharks don’t get sick as easily as other animals do. They also think they have magical power to heal and people can be stronger from eating shark-fins soup. The cartilage is also being sold as a cancer or arthritis treatment; however, here is no scientific backing to this at all. Over 90% of the shark population in the world is gone now, and soon there won’t be any left, if people keep killing sharks. (Sharkwater) Every day people is just talking about saving pandas, elephants and bears, but here is no any international regulations to protect sharks.

Why? It is because we’ve been told in our whole life, since we’re a kid, sharks are dangerous. We’re warned if we swim too far into the ocean. Most information of sharks that people hear about is from media. For instance, afraid of white shark is based on the movie Jaws, and the misconception is still floating around. However, the fact is sharks do not eat people, and they rarely bite human beings and hardly have really serious bites. Although in the odd case where someone dies, it’s usually because of the loss of blood, not because the shark ate the person. Sharkwater) Sharks kill 5 people each year, elephants kill 100. Even more people die from soda pop machines than sharks do. There is nothing like what we’re told. There is nothing like what we think. There is nothing like what we believe. “One animal that we fear the most is the one we can’t live without. ”(Sharkwater) They’ve been here for more than 400 million years, 150 million years before the dinosaurs, when life had just begun on land. Sharks control the population below them, eliminating species that were easy prey and creating new ones.

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They are perfect predators that keep balance in the underwater world. The top predators are fundamental in controlling the structure and the functioning of the ecosystems. As we know, carbon dioxide is the global-warming gas and plankton converts it to oxygen, providing 70% of the oxygen we breathe on land. Without sharks to prey the animals at bottom of the food chain, they could grow out of control consuming the plankton that we depend on for survival. (Sharkwater) Life on land depends on life in the ocean, so do us.

One the big reason shark poaching continues to go on is because we don’t see it. Because we don’t see people are poaching sharks, cutting off their fins and throwing them back into the ocean; without fins they can’t breathe, then die. Because we don’t see the corruption between the government and sharks-fin Mafia, hundreds of millions shark-fins were dried on the roof without any restrictions. Because we don’t see every day the shark population is declining, more than three hundred species of sharks face misfortune. We don’t like spiders and snakes but puppy and seals.

Once we see sharks in a different light, we can change our mind. Stop illegal shark poaching and promulgated regulations is not only saving the sharks but saving ourselves as well. We’re not the god, we can’t shape the world. What we can do now is to call everyone to stop eating shark-fins, to against the illegal shark poaching, and to save the planet from ourselves and our future. Work Citied Sharkwater. Dir. Rob Stewart. " 2006, Film. Yong, Ed. "Shark-hunting harms animals at bottom of the food chain. " wordpress. com (2007): n. pag. Web. 14 Feb 2011. .

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