Shark fishermen at work in New Zealand. Photo: The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
Sharks face the threat of extinction in every part of the world due to overfishing. The over-fishing is driven by the high demand for shark fins, but it is also due to unintended catch called 'bycatch'. Complicating matters is man's fear and ignorance of sharks, which results in people either not caring about sharks, or thinking that it is a good thing to kill them.
Below are articles that examine these threats to sharks.
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Shark nets are gill nets installed in tiered patterns by KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board (KZNSB). The purpose is to reduce the shark populations and keep them away from people swimming at the beaches. However, there are better ways to protect swimmers that don't indiscriminately kill sharks and other marine life.
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The Largest Fish on Coral Reefs were the First to Go. “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone,” as we’re only now finding out.
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Toxins move up the food chain in the oceans and accumulate in increasingly dangerous quantitities. Sharks are at the top, store the most toxins, and should not be eaten.
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Shark fin soup is not just dangerous for sharks, but bad for people, as well.
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Here is a movie produced by our friend MA Shumin for NPR's Science Fridays on Shark Fin Soup. Ma was born in China and now lives in New York City.
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Shark finning is a practice where sharks are caught, hauled on board, their fins sliced off, and then the still-living, finless bodies are tossed overboard.
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In the 1970s and 1980s and earlier, the Maldives was world-renowned as an important region for sharks. Because of that, it became a shark diving hotspot.
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Bycatch is when a species of fish or marine mammal is unintentionally caught while fishing for a specific 'target' species.
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Sharks, perhaps more than any other sub-class of animals, are being hunted down at an alarming rate for their fins and many species are verging on extinction.
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The history and problems of shark nets, which are used at some beaches in South Africa to reduce the likelihood of interaction between sharks and humans.
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