A fear of sharks seems to be instilled in people at a very young age. I meet thousands of children as a mermaid each season and children most of the time think sharks are scary monsters that eat people. The scary movies are just movies. Jaws, Sharknado, sharktopus, etc. they are fiction.
The truth is sharks are not out to get you. Fatal Shark attacks are pretty rare. An average of 2-10 fatalities from sharks each year worldwide. See the infographics below to see some things that are more likely to kill you. Some might surprise you.
Why are sharks so important?
Sharks are a keystone species they are necessary for a healthy ecosystem. Learn more about how disastrous a world without sharks would be below.
What’s killing all the sharks ?
Humans. Humans kill 100,000 million sharks a year.
Overfishing is the biggest killer of sharks this includes shark finning. What is shark finning? They catch the shark, pull it to the boat, cut off all its fins and then throw it back to die. The fins are used in soup. Shark fin soup is a popular dish in Asian countries. It’s completely pointless to continue driving them toward extinction for soup because apparently the soup tastes the same without the fins.
Sharks are also killed for their oil (squaleen) which is used in beauty products. Like lipstick. They also make synthetic squaleen but they don’t tell you which one it is on the label so only wear vegan lipstick to make sure you don’t have shark liver oil on your lips.
Sharks are sometimes killed for their teeth, don’t buy any white shark teeth for sale! Only the black fossil teeth to ensure no shark died so you could have a tooth.
Fisherman kill sharks because they are incorrectly taught that sharks are monsters and killing them is doing people a favor. Education would solve this. DO NOT KILL SHARKS! A lot of species are on the endangered species lists. A lot are threatened or near threatened but all are facing threats of extinction because of humans.
imitation crab might be shark meat! That’s so gross! White fish is a name people give shark meat to make it sound nicer. Don’t eat it!
Climate change and pollution are impacting all marine life including sharks.
More info and How you can help!
There are a ton of resources! I’ve added lots of links below!