Sharks's Role In The Marine Ecosystem

Sharks are aquatic creatures and very important to the living with lots of information humans may not understand. To start off, femeles give birth to 7-9 sharks per litter that are 3-4 feet at birth. Next humans believe all sharks are monsters but out of 400 species only 4 sharks have been claimed to attack on humans. Lastly sharks attack for 2 main reasons one reason is for defense and predation. They attack in defense when humans are in or around their territory they attack in predation mistaking people for seals. In conclusion sharks are creatures that humans are still learning about and try to understand them better.

Sharks have been in our oceans for almost 450 million years. Those millions of years of evolution have allowed many different shark species to develop abilities, and to become perfect predators.

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.

Sharks are one of the oceans top predators. They vary in size from the extremely small dwarf shark, to the colossal whale shark. Sharks can be found all across the world’s oceans, from the tropic waters of Hawaii to the sub zero temperatures in the Artic oceans. Of the hundreds of sharks a select few species have actually been recorded in the Artic. Of these few, only three of them spend the majority of their time in these harsh, freezing waters. These sharks are the Greenland, Pacific Sleeper, and Salmon sharks.

Fish 1and chips, messed up ecosystems and broken food chain. Why do we have to cull our beautiful sharks that have done no harm to us? I have conducted a research about shark culling and why people do this. I strongly disagree to shark culling. I mainly think that we should just keep an eye out on the sharks in the ocean. They only mistake us a seals and eat us. We should all incorporate and help increase the population of sharks again. Now why do people cull sharks and how can we prevent this? What does shark culling affect?

People visceral when they see a shark and they try to capture and kill it. Only some people want to protect sharks. Sharks help by keeping the fish population down First, we can protect sharks by doing little things such as stop finning sharks, picking up our trash. Next people destroy environments by oil spills. Not picking up trash. Last if people don’t stop finning sharks and not throwing their trash away our environment will smell bad and we will have no sharks left.

In the Food Web I displayed previously, the animals that are part of the sharks diet are: smaller sharks, tuna and and marlin. These marine animals that find themselves apart of the sharks' diets will be competing with each other to find food - this is because there would be so many of them, and not as much of their food - because they won't be eaten by the shark. The animals that the marine animals (including tuna, marlin and smaller sharks) eat will decrease extensively, and become near extinct - these being tuna, squid, ocean sunfish, lancet fish, mackerel, amphipods and shrimp. Other animals that share the same diet of these fish may also find that they are not getting enough nutrients to live/survive, because their food is now being shared by lots more fish/marine animals, that, originally, would be eaten by the now culled sharks. With these other animals that share the same diet as the fish, if they don't get enough nutrients to survive, the survival of their species could be uncertain. If those species die out, then other consumers of them could possibly start to decline in numbers as well. Sharks keep the marine environment healthy and productive, therefore without them the ecosystem won't properly function resulting in the unbalance of food webs and food chains. Shark culling can also lead to coral reefs and other animals/species dying off. Shark

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

Sharks have been around longer than any human. They are descendants of the dinosaurs that have survived what so many could not. If this versatile animal does not make it to the years ahead, then the earth is in for dire times. Sharks are an indicator about the state of well being of the ocean. If sharks are spotted in a particular area of the ocean we then know that this area of the ocean is healthy. Whereas areas where there are no sharks, the water usually unsuitable for most aquatic creatures.

Shark finning is popular in asia. They cut the fin off of the shark, and then throw the shark back in the water. Since sharks are being killed for just the fin, there are bans against finning. People also started just killing them after the movie Jaws came out(8). It pictured a Great White shark attacking people viciously. It upset people because it was based on a true story, but in the actual occurrence it was a bull shark that attacked the people not the Great White(8). There are many shark sanctuaries set up in the ocean to protect them. They can go there and live without having to worry if they will get caught in a net or get their fins cut off. In many countries there are bans on Great White Shark products. There are many projects in effect for protecting Great White Sharks(Institution, Smithsonian). Great white sharks are illegal to hunt because they are endangered. They also have a short life span of about sixty years, but very few make it to even thirty. There are many signs that say the great white population is increasing slowly but steadily(Institution,

Pacific sleeper sharks, which are also known scavengers, can glide through the water with little body movement and little hydrodynamic noise making them successful predators. They feed by suction and cutting of their prey. They have large mouths that can inhale prey and their teeth cut up any pieces that are too large to swallow. They show a characteristic rolling motion of the head when feeding. Only in Alaska has the shark's diet been studied - most sharks' stomachs contain remains of giant Pacific octopus. They are also known to feed on bottom-dwelling teleost fishes as well as soles, flounders, Alaska pollock, rockfishes, shrimps, hermit crabs, and even marine snails. Larger Pacific sleeper sharks are also found to feed on fast swimming

The environmental factors are about the conditions and the surroundings that we live in. Shark finning is an awful practice that causes negative impacts for the environment. Once the sharks are caught, the fins are cut off and are returned to the waters. Almost always, they don’t survive due to predation to other animals, blood loss or from suffocation. The Shark Population is massively decreasing. Specialists estimate that approximately 100 million sharks are killed. In the marine ecosystem, sharks are probably the primary predators and ocean takers. They are apex predators who are responsible for keeping the population in balance. They have been around Earth for 400 million years. The Earth is 70% covered with water and it houses 80% of life on Earth, which is why it’s important to sustain this

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

Sharks are one of the most feared carnivores in the sea. There are 365 species of of sharks in the sea as we know today. All sharks are carnivores. Most of them eat live fish, including other sharks. A shark's most common natural enemy is an another shark. Most sharks eat their prey whole, or they tear off large chunks of the bodies. Some sharks crush their prey. Others take out small pieces off flesh from large fish. Sharks also feed on dead or dying animals. Sharks have the reputation of attacking human beings. But less than 100 shark attacks a year are reported throughout the world. Sharks are most common in warm seas and oceans. Whale sharks, are the largest shark known to man. Sharks are classified in the order