Previously, it wasn’t often that you would hear about shark attacks happening on the East Coast. The annual average of attacks in the area is 6, so understandably people are worried that the number has risen to 11 in only the past few months. You can be sure that you won’t see me on that coast for a while, however, I have a friend who’s family is stationed there and the concern for his child’s safety on the beach is growing with each attack (understandably so.)
Recent Shark Attacks
There have been various attacks this summer on the coast of the Carolinas. In less than a month, the news had reported a total of 8 attacks. The most recent attack was along the North Carolina coastline and involved a Camp Lejeune Marine. Shark experts warn people that typically,
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Many surfers meet them while out on the water and live to attest to the fact of curiosity. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case lately. http://myfox8.com/2015/07/06/eighth-shark-attack-in-nc-reported-in-surf-city/ Why Are These Shark Attacks Happening?
Different theories have surfaced in attempts to explain why there are so many more shark attacks this year. Various media outlets are covering these incidents hoping to bring awareness to the fact that these waters may not be too safe at the moment. Unfortunately, scientists don’t have a definite answer as to why the number of attacks has risen, although they are researching various reasons as to why the marine life might be more prevalent in the area lately. Could it be that there are just more people in the water? These two states have apparently grown in popularity for tourists, not to mention the bases of military personnel stationed there with their families. It makes sense that there would be more exposure to attacks if there are more people in the water. The species of sharks believed to be attacking people is still unknown, creating another
Apalachicola Bay is located on the Northwest coast of Florida and has been called the heart and soul of North Florida. The oysters produced at the bay are undoubtedly superior and are considered the finest in the nation, according to New York Times (New York Times, 2002). In addition, the bay is one of the most productive estuaries in the country. However, the total harvest dropped to around 1 million pounds in 2013 and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared a fishery disaster on the bay (Alvarez, 2015). The effect on oystermen's life is even worse. They complained that they are not able to pull out enough oysters to pay for their boat gas.
Over the past 100 years sharks attack numbers, though rare, have been increasing. Ironically two of the most recent attacks have happened this month, which is the 40 year anniversary of the movie Jaws. these two attacks happened at Oak Island in North Carolina. The two attacks were at different times, only by hours, but on the same beach. It’s suspected that either a tiger or bull shark had attacked these two teen girls, but usually great white, lemon, spinner sharks are to blame for human attacks. Attacks this year had also been performed by a nurse and mako shark. Most attacks are categorized as “provoked attacks.” This is like a shark getting a shark bite during spearfishing, shark catching, or even releasing it from a line. Sharks accidentally
If a bull shark and hammerhead shark were to fight, the bull shark would win. Bull sharks are the most dangerous sharks in the world! Along with this, bull sharks have special adaptations, and they hunt in shallow waters. Although hammerhead sharks have great vision, the shape of their heads, and the placement of their eyes cause them to have a huge blind spot right in the middle of their head. This makes it easier for other sharks to win a fight against the hammerhead.
If you were to focus on the main ideas of the shark attacks at the beach or reefs and do something about it, like put a certain type of magnet in the water that can overload the sharks senses, would you? That’s exactly what Eric Stroud did. When doing this he can protect us from sharks and sharks from us.
Sharon Guynup believed that sharks need protection. In her article she provided many valid points to why she is in this position. First of all, sharks keep the balance in the aquatic food chain. Without sharks all of their prey would overpopulate. Second, people think that all sharks are big and bad, but really only 24 out of the 375 species of sharks are dangerous, in any way, to humans. Those 24 species are only responsible for less than 100 attacks per year and most are by mistake; only 1 bite. Even though sharks don’t do much to us, we kill them all the time for sport, food, leather, jewelry, and they sometimes get trapped in fishing nets. It takes sharks 10 years to reach a reproductive age and they can only reproduce small litters of
The Shark’s place in the marine ecosystem is as a predator at the top of the food chain as there is no natural predator of sharks. Sharks are not very fastidious about what they eat but their diet generally consists of seal, crab, squid, lobster and fish. If sharks were to become extinct there would be an ecological cost. The marine life that is the shark’s food source would start to overpopulate with nothing to prey on it. One possible reason that sharks are coming closer to shores is that their natural food source is diminishing due to overfishing by humans. To stop sharks from being too near to popular swimming locations, fishermen need to expand or change their hunting areas.
Do you love sharks? Did you know that they have their own week called Shark Week?
Sharks don’t discriminate against age, gender or occupation they attack everyone, this is shown through seven of the fourteen recent attacks (pictured below) where young and old, male and female as well as fathers of young children are all attacked. People are attacked by sharks no matter what their doing, for example sharks have killed people who are surfing, people who are scuba diving as well as killed people who are just going for a swim
Shark culling has become the new issue for Australian media. Shark culling is not the answer for safer oceans. We would be far better allocating resources to achieving a greater understanding of ecology and behaviour of these large predators. Tagging sharks and following their movement over time will show were they are likely to attack next. The marine ecosystems needs the sharks at the top of the food web, removing the sharks you would see more lower ranked fish. The marine ecosystem will have to do some
With a lack of fish, coral reefs will perish and stunt tourism with a fighting impact. The article, Invasion of the Lionfish, acknowledges that, "Millions of tourists visit the Caribbean islands each year, many drawn by the chance to snorkel or scuba-dive. The sea is home to more than 1200 species of fish, many of which don't exist anywhere else. "The lionfish could have a devastating effect on business, "says Peter Hughes, whose company leads nearly 1000 tourists on guided dive tours in the Caribbean every year." This not only means that thousands of fish will die out, but that many jobs to locals will disappear without another thought. Thousands of tourists will disband and never be able to behold the true Majesty of the coral
Like other shark species, the silky shark is in serious decline. According to the IUCN Red List, http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/39370/0 the silky share in and around Central America had "declined in abundance by about 90% and in biomass by more than 90 [percent]." The silky shark's decline is largely due to unsustainable fishing practices, particularly those related to tuna.
This is true because you may think that sharks are everywhere in the ocean. This is not true. They are sometimes found in an unusual place, but this is because with us taking over their habitats, and polluting them where else can they go? We have all of the lands, but we also take over the ocean, home to many sea creatures. That just makes us selfish. We can’t get mad at sharks when they would be perfectly fine if we just left them and their home alone.
On July 22 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had counted 71 manatees hit and killed by boats, this was report by the Naples Daily News on last Saturady.This is a big increase of losses of manatees cause by boats (alone) and all this happened this year . If this keeps happing there may become extinct.
Hurricane Katrina had a huge impact on the United States Wildlife and Fisheries in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas because of debris, oil, chemicals and other hazardous waste that was released into the water during the storm. The effects of Hurricane Katrina show us how major flooding can destroy ecosystems. The U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico leads the nation in landings of shrimp, oysters, and blue crab. The habitat that supports these fisheries and coastal economies also supports community resiliency and protects infrastructure for example, ports, energy production, fisheries which are extremely important to the nation. This habitat and its ability to support fisheries and protect vital infrastructure is threatened by
There are many threats to sea life. One of the big issues is the bleaching of the coral reefs. CO2 plays a large part in coral reefs dying, by removing the algae that gives them their color. The algae on a reef could be considered the lifeblood of the local ecosystem. Without a reef for sea life to hide from predators, storms and find nourishment, they will die out or move on. In this area, it could become hard for the local population of people who depend on the sea life for a source of food.