Sharks Are Worth More Alive Than Dead

“The Misunderstood Shark” was written by Gregory Skomal, a biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and shark fanatic. His article was published by The Wall Street Journal on August 7, 2015. The engaging title, itself grabs the reader’s attention, making the reader feel sympathetic towards the shark. Upon hearing the word, “shark”, an individual may cringe. The author makes a solid claim that our attitudes about sharks are changing, but not towards direction it needs to be. He supports his argument with strong appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos throughout the article.

One of the major problems is shark finning. Shark finning is the practice of removing the shark’s fins after it has been caught. They keep the fins and the body is usually thrown back into the sea, and usually the shark is still alive when this happens. When this is done sharks are not able to swim, and eventually the shark dies from suffocation, blood loss or being eaten another predator. The reason why the fins are kept are because shark fins are one of the most expensive food items in the world and can be worth more than over $400 per kilogram. One of the problems with finning and the selling shark fins is that it has caused a lot of declines in shark populations. Shark finning is unmonitored and unreported so the actual amount of finning is unknown. Finning is done at random and unbiased, they go after any species, sex or size of shark. Research has been done on some of the fins brought in by fisheries and it shows that even fins from great white sharks are appearing in shark fin

Every Jaws fan knows the shark gets it in the end. What they do not know is that too many sharks have gotten it; and that has caused a rapid decline in the shark population over the past thirty years. Since the 1970's, sharks of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico shores have declined eighty-five percent. Sharks are vital animal to our world's ecosystem, and if the decline is not controlled; we could be facing devastating problems in years to come. Information has been obtained from two books: The Shark Almanac by Thomas B. Allen and Sharks, An Introduction for the Amateur Naturalist by Sanford A. Moss. Sources also include a number of online references, among them BBC News, ENS News, The New York Times, and two online scientific

Shark finning is the process of cutting off the fins of a shark and discarding the body at sea (“Stop Shark Finning”, 2009). People catch sharks for its fins, meat, oil, skin and so on. Sharks fins are most commonly used in Asian cooking which is shark fin soup. According to Maddalena, Sommeran and Leander (2007), people have been demanding for shark fins dramatically recently, it is unclear how many sharks are caught annually but some of the conservationists estimate the number to be upwards of 100 million. Besides, shark conservationists are aware about the consequences of the high demand of shark fins, they advocate people to stop killing sharks and eating shark fins. Practice of shark finning is causing imbalance marine ecosystems and it

Arising over 350 million years ago, the shark species has been labeled as a human devourer. Now, with the increase in human population, the demand for shark meat, fins, and cartilage are at an all time high; therefore, the existence of the shark is becoming a concern (Budker 1971). Individuals are conditioned to think of sharks as a negative aspect to the environment, which is prolonging the effort to save shark species from becoming extinct. With that in mind, some private as well as national organizations have accepted the challenge of educating and informing people about the existence of the shark specie and its importance to the sea.

The things that sharks are being killed for is sickening. So far, humans have decimated about 90 percent of the world’s shark populations for the sake of shark tooth jewelry and jaws that tourists buy in massive quantities, sharkskin accessories, phony medicines made from their cartilage, and a huge range of cosmetics, deodorants, moisturizers, sun tan lotions, and lip balms that use shark liver oil as a base because it makes our skin soft. (Check the ingredients of these items before you buy. If they contain “squalene” or “squalane,” leave them on the shelf.) (M. R., Ph. (2015, February 08). The Most Misunderstood Shark Fact Of All Time. From

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.

Imagine a world without your favorite foods you have ever consumed. Imagine a world where you cannot even enjoy your favorite beach on vacation because of unmanageable algae taking over our coasts. Imagine a world with a huge spike in greenhouse gases, and a dramatic decline of natural oxygen production. This is a world without the most feared and misunderstood creature that rules our oceans, the Shark. In an advertisement published by WWF, it conveys the message of what we should actually be fearing, the fall of our marine ecosystems and what that will do to humanity. The advertisement uses all three appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos to push their targeted audience to further their education on our world and to spread the word to everyone

To this day, many of us still see them this way. In fact, coastal states stared to host shark culling events. In these sometime month-long events, a state government will pay any fishermen to bring in a freshly killed shark generous amounts of money. Peter Benchley, the author of "Jaws" doesn't support shark culling, he in fact helped raise awareness about sharks becoming endangered. He wrote articles about how misunderstood sharks are (Benchley, Peter). This is now illegal in the United States, but is still practiced in countries such as Japan and Australia. Even in those countries, shark culling is on its way out. But

Thesis: Sharks are a vital part of our ecosystem, and killing them disrupts the delicate balance of the ocean.

Sharks are a fundamental aspect of Australian waters, but shark culling has rapidly decreased the numbers over the past few years. The government definitely should not adopt a policy on shark culling, as sharks are the cornerstone to the contribution of social, environmental, economic and political aspects of our nation. If governments adopt this policy on shark culling, it will undoubtedly have a deliberate impact on the food chain. Additionally, even killing small numbers of already-threatened sharks will rapidly increase extinction risks of sharks. To conclude, humans contribute to the killing of more deaths than the opposite action done from sharks.

Donohue, Patrick and Log, Destin. “Sharks 101.” State and Regional Newspaper, 7 September. 2006. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 28 May. 2016.

More and more people have been introduced to a very dangerous practice called shark-finning. Even the people who are aware of the harmful effects they bring still continue on doing it. People are afraid of sharks due to their fierce appearance and the bad publicity they get such as the movies wherein sharks attack humans. Only about 5 people are killed by sharks every year. In fact, vending machines has a higher death rate of 13, while ants can kill about 30 people annually. Sharks are very beneficial to us, why do people keep on harming them? Why is shark-finning so important? Shark-finning gives both advantages and disadvantages economically, politically, cultural, societal, and environmental. It is important to recognize the

Firstly, sharks play a significantly important role in the ocean as most sharks serve as top predators and are at the top of the food pyramid and so they play a vital role in the ocean ecosystems. They hunt old, weak and or sick fishes in the sea thus, keeping

I How many of yall like Sharks? Most people are deadly scared of sharks, and some just simply do not like them. Well, I am not here to inform to like sharks, but here to inform you of the issues that shark face today.