Banning overfishing of sharks for their fins
Imagine if you and the people closest to you were just doing what you normally do day to day when all of a sudden out of nowhere someone traps you in a net holding you against your will cutting your arms and legs off then just leave you there bleeding to death.
Everyday tens of millions of sharks are murdered and hunted primarily for their fins to be used in soup. The definition of shark fining means the removal of shark fins while the rest of the body is thrown back into the ocean to drown, starve or get eaten by another animal all leading up to death. Although shark fining has been around for several decades the practice needs to be stopped. Killing sharks for their fins used in soup is known to cause serious health issues and is also unbeneficial towards the oceans ecosystem.
Sharks have been around since before humans much less dinosaurs; they have been around for more than 420 million years. Everything about sharks is just fascinating. Sharks feed on squid, fish, plankton, crustaceans and other various marine life. Known as the oceans sea dogs sharks have a skeleton made of cartilage and a body built for flexibility, durability and speed; perfectly designed for hunting. Born to fend on their own right out of their mother’s womb sharks depend a lot on their eighth sense which allows them to sense things around them without having to hear, see, or touch them. Sharks have three more sense organs than we do known as the lateral line, pit organs and ampullae of lorenzini. Most known to be carnivorous, sharks have the ability to sense tiny drops of blood in the water as far as three miles away and depending...
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...ms are unhealthy and can cause problems such as pollution harming them in return and can also cause problems considering the amount of space or have the ability to feed like they normally would in the ocean. No animal should be kept in a cage for the problems that humans have caused.
The only way we can help save these poor animals that are older than us is to help spread the word on why shark fining should be banned and how harmful it is and what it’s doing to the environment. Ways to help spread the word can be convincing restaurant managers to stop ordering the soup by informing them of the problems caused by shark fining. Although it may be illegal to go shark fining for shark fin soup it isn’t to prepare the soup. Help show local communities they can make more money by conserving the sharks then killing them or something as simple as not eating the soup.
So why do we need sharks? Well, Sharks help keep the ocean healthy and clean for over 450 million years. They also help remove half of the worlds green house gases and produces oxygen more than all of the rainforest's combined! Sharks are just as important as all the trees in the world because they have one thing in common, provide us with oxygen. Without the sharks help we wouldn't be able to get rid as much of the greenhouse gases as we want to, which means global warming would have a lower rate of happening faster. Most importantly they provide us with food. How? They would usually eat the old, sick or slower fish in the population of the ocean to the right size so the prey species don't cause harm to ecosystem by becoming to populated. They are also at the top of the food web. If all the sharks went extinct the entire food web would collapse causing many other species of fish to disappear. So instead of killing the sharks, we could lure them away to somewhere else. As they have a huge impact to the environment.
Every year, there are about 100 million Sharks killed, ultimately for its commercial success. Their fins are used as the main ingredient for a dish so-called Shark soup. However, many are unaware of the actual importance of Sharks' existence on Earth. They do a number of things to control and balance aquatic life down below, which in return affects how we live on the surface. Sharks have existed in our world for over 400 million years, if they were to suddenly disappear for industrial purposes, much problems will be encountered throughout the world. We must preserve the lives of Sharks, for many reasons most importantly that shark hunting is morally wrong, it may provide economic failure in a given time, and it may serve a critical unbalance of a healthy environmental state.
Mojetta wrote about prehistoric sharks, and the history of these creatures. According to Angelo Mojetta, author of Sharks, Cladoselache genus, one of the first prehistoric sharks, was buried in sediment that kept it preserved. Unlike other sharks, Cladoselache genus had a circle of tiny plates around it’s eyes for protection against it’s victim’s attempts to fight back. These sharks lived over 400 million years ago. Sharks of the past could mostly be identified by their teeth, because shark’s bodies are made of cartilage. Another shark that was focused on was called, Stethacanthus. This shark had a very unique look. Stethacanthus had a brush like decoration on the top of it’s head, and an extra fin like part that had the same bristle like decorations on it. These characteristics were thought to be used as suction cups, to hitch rides from larger fish. One of the most famous sharks that looks like an over...
The bull shark may be responsible for many shark attacks in the world but I believe that we have no right to kill them. Sharks are very important to animals food cycles and if the food cycles get messed up it can greatly effect the world. In fact, the bull shark is more vulnerable to human impact due to their ability to live in fresh and salt water but many sharks that are killed are for either shark fin soup or their liver oil. The sharks liver oil has many uses now but it started as a machine lubricant. Another way that sharks die is by recreational fishing. The sharks can get caught up in the fishermen's nets and eventually suffocate and die. As an environmental community, I feel like we need to inform people about shark habits and how to keep sharks safe. The water is their home and we are
Sharks have also been subjected to medical research, games and competitions, jewellery, souvenirs and cosmetics. We need to take into consideration that sharks play a vital role in the natural world that we live in. it is imperative that we look after these majestic creatures and ensure they remain protected. We need to be aware of the dangers of sharks, swim in protected areas where there are shark nets, and do not swim after dark in the sea (especially not alone) as the sea is the sharks home. Humans should also be wearing wet suits as protection in the ocean. The sea is where they live, they swim freely and they eat – they do not particularly target humans but rather prey on food that is available to them in their habitat.
One of the governments main reasons for culling the sharks is because they are coming in too close to the shores and becoming a potential threat to swimmers. But why is this happening? This is due to a change in shark feeding habits, but because they are eating more human of course not! Rather because us humans are over fishing and eliminating the fish/food sources of which sharks normally feed on. This is forcing sharks to come in closer to find food. Us as humans have forced sharks to come in closer and are now killing sharks because of our a...
On average they weigh 4,000-7,000 pounds and grow approximately 16-20 feet long ( Great white sharks 1). < commentary needed>Great Whites are the apex predator of the ocean containing 300 serrated teeth and highly-developed senses to hunt prey. Sharks have a great senses of smell, the Great White can smell a drop of blood thousand of miles away. They’re hearing is very powerful , being able to hear the vibrations of prey distances of about 800 ft away and find the exact location through ‘ear stone’( Great white 3). A shark 's sense of hearing truly shows their uniqueness as an apex predator. In addition to great hearing they’re known to have great sight by being able to see up to 50ft away and transition into seeing in light and dark. Additionally sharks have a lateral line on their back that reaches from the front to the back tail, allowing
Information (sub-point): The solution to the problem of shark finning is to sign petitions and force the government to pass legislature that will ban shark finning, as well as ban the import of shark fins. In 2000, Bill Clinton signed the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000 (SFPA), which “banned finning on any fishing vessel within United States territorial waters, and on all U.S.-flagged fishing vessels in international waters” (Speigel, 2011). Currently, it is also illegal to hunt sharks in many parts around the world due to various restrictions set by other government, but it is not illegal to import and sell shark fins. Finding shark fins in the US can be as easy as walking into an Asian restaurant and ordering shark fin soup. If we truly want to make a difference, and see a rise in the shark populations around the world, we need to ban the sell and trade of shark fins
Thesis: Sharks should be conserved because they are an important part of the ocean, attacks are often incidental, and human behavior influences the behavior of sharks.
The Great white sharks sense of smell is better than a human. A great white shark could smell a drop of blood from at least 500 miles away! Their eyesight is not so good but when a great white shark is being attacked they roll their eyes to the back of their heads so they can protect them. Sharks have an ear stone that senses vibration in the water from over 100 miles away. Sharks are great hunters.
Sharks are some of the most ancient species that have ever existed on the Earth, dating back over 400 million years; well before the time of the dinosaurs. There are around 500 distinct varieties of sharks and due to shark finning, some shark populations have decreased by approximately 90% . The diversity in sharks ranges from the breathtaking to the mundane to the downright eerie. Previously thought to be strictly saltwater animals, some species are also known to live in freshwater . Sharks are extra sensory animals and can detect the slightest changes in their environment. They can hear sounds inaudible to humans for over a mile, and can sense the smallest pressure changes around their bodies; both are key in a sharks hunting ability
Most people think that sharks are large, fast-swimmers, and savage predators. This is true of some species and groups should be interested of the appealing aspects of biology found within it: all sharks have an excellent sense of smell; some can detect electrical discharges; some sharks give birth to one of the
If anything, they may interpret the act as a just course of action. If shark numbers are to make a significant recovery, then the public requires education. Recently, in order to stop shark finning, shark advocates have tried new methods. With the help of many celebrities and the public alike, conservationists continue to advocate the negative aspects of shark fin soup in order to decrease the demand for the dish. They hope to make the consumption of shark fin “socially unacceptable” (Tsui). Instead of trying to create international bans on shark finning, these groups, such as WildAid, believe that by changing public opinion, the desire for shark fin products will go down. Because shark fin soup represents status and prosperity, hosts at formal celebrations want to impress their guests with the expensive dish. But if shark fin soup falls out of favor in the public eye, the demand for it will naturally lessen. Instead, more sustainable products, such as French wine, can replace shark fin soup to serve to guests
Shark finning should be banned. Why would anyone want to needlessly eliminate sharks off the planet just for soup? People should stop finning sharks because it destabilizes marine ecosystems, is an unnecessary thickening agent for shark fin soup, and, being that sharks have one of the strongest immune systems on the planet, may hold the secrets to curing diseases like cancer. People need to stop finning sharks.
Then a financial crisis occurred causing consumption of the soup to decline from 900 000 to 750 000 (Cheong 2009), and dried seafood market also stopped selling the product because there was a total price drop of 40 percent in the market (Cheong 2009). This leads to the second part of the question as to whether the money is worth the risk and if money is an incentive. Anyone with common sense can tell that shark finning is not humane and shouldn’t be done as this process is wasting a valuable resource (Yaukey 1999). There are a few places in the US where this act is still legal, but they are trying to change it as fast as they can. The number of sharks killed in Hawaii went from 2 000 to 61 000 annually (Yaukey 1999), this number is alarming and can show that there is a serious problem with the way we consume animals.