Man Bites Shark
Unlike fish lower down the food chain, which spawn millions of eggs, sharks have relatively few young and mature slowly. This means that a depleted shark population needs decades to recover. Sharks seldom attack humans and these attacks are rarely fatal, but over the last several decades, humans have killed a tremendous number of sharks. The intensely profitable trade in shark fins has boomed, shark meat is increasingly popular, and shark-cartilage pills have been marketed—falsely—as anti-cancer remedies.
As apex predators, sharks play an important role in regulating the marine food chain. "If you remove some of these important animals, which have been around in some form or another for 400 million years, it's going to have some sort of a cascade effect on the whole ecology of the system," explains Dr. Carl Luer, senior scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory's Center for Shark Research in Sarasota, Florida, where sharks are maintained as laboratory animals for a wide range of research. Their sensory systems are extraordinarily acute, their reproductive cycles are remarkably similar to mammals', and their immune systems are extremely effective—sharks hardly ever get sick.
Some shark populations have declined as much as 80% in the last decade, and are approaching extinction. They need protection from the most relentless predator of all—humans.
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