Stop the senseless killing of sharks

Sharks have a higher extinction risk than most other vertebrates in the ocean, and we’re the problem.

The mistreatment of sharks, while some have tried to bring attention to this, has gone on far too long and far too unnoticed. Humans are killing them before they can reproduce, and considering they do so slowly and don’t have many offspring when they do, makes the overfishing problem far worse.

The U.S. passed the Shark Finning Prohibition Act in 2000, making finning of sharks and other creatures illegal  in U.S. territorial waters and all fishing vessels flagged by the U.S., as well as other laws being passed in the future against it. But this doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen anymore, whether it be in other places, or illegally.

There are only around 70 shark bites per year, and most are not fatal, yet around 100 million sharks are killed by humans globally per year —- that’s three sharks per second. Sharks aren’t murderous creatures with malevolent intent; in fact, most are quite docile. The amount of people sharks kill are around five per year, which is far less than other causes.

How are they killed? Most fishermen cut the dorsal fins off of the shark and then toss the shark back into the water, where it’ll die slowly via suffocation because it can’t move, or straight up bleeding out. Sometimes, all their fins are cut off, and then their body is mutilated even more so the fishermen can retrieve the hook.

Shark finning is cruel and entirely unnecessary. This is not only torture to sharks, but it hurts the ecosystem as well. Sharks play a crucial role in the ecosystem — they serve as apex predators and protect and amplify the carbon kept in oceans. They hunt herbivorous fish and in doing so prevents the fish from over-consuming vegetation in the ocean. The entire ocean ecosystem could be launched into instability if they were to go extinct.

Sharks have been around before even trees existed, having survived five mass extinctions, and are able to thrive in multiple habitats. They’re important creatures, so torturing them for their fins (which are flavorless too) serves as nothing but pointless and especially harmful displays of money: shark fins are around $1,300 US dollars, and a bowl of shark fin soup costs $100 U.S. dollars. The demand for it leads to cruel practices and tortures sharks.

“Despite what movies say, or what the general public thinks, sharks are some of the most docile things to people — only having a few species that will harm humans,” said freshman shark enthusiast M.G. “Meanwhile, humans kill millions of sharks per year, just for a stew.”