Please Help Now!

February 2005
Feature Story
by Jean-Michel Cousteau

Sharks have roamed our water planet for more than 400 million years. There are more than 400 species of sharks, but only 68 are considered potentially dangerous. Of those, only four or five are occasionally involved in harmful situations with people. Sharks do not instinctually pursue humans as food. Most shark attacks are cases of "mistaken identity" in which sharks believe they are feeding on fish, sea lions, seals or other marine mammals.

On average, there are 100 shark "attacks" on humans each year around the world. Only about a dozen are fatal. More people die annually from bee stings, dog bites or slipping in bath tubs. For every single human fatality from an encounter with a shark, we kill 10 million of them—roughly 11,000 sharks every hour of every day.

The slaughter of sharks, key apex predators that maintain the health of ocean ecosystems, is reducing their numbers towards rapid extinction.  Photo credit: Government of United Arab Emirates

Although some countries ban shark finning, this brutal practice continues, driven by the demand for shark fin soup, a sought-after delicacy in Asia.  Photo credit: Roberto Vargas, Sea Turtle Restoration Project

The result is simply devastating. Over 120 species of sharks are currently listed as threatened or endangered. The implications are enormous. As apex predators, sharks play an important role in maintaining the health of the ocean's ecosystem. Serious decline in their numbers affects many other species, and there is clear evidence that some fish stocks have collapsed because of a reduction in shark numbers.

Certain species of sharks have already plummeted by as much as 80% in the past decade, and are well on their way to becoming extinct within the next 10 years. Since 1986 in the Northwest Atlantic, hammerheads have declined by 89%, white sharks by 79% and tiger sharks by 65%. All recorded shark species, with one exception, have declined by more than 50% in the past eight to 15 years. The rapid slide is even more acute in some populations, like the whitetip shark in the Gulf of Mexico, where 99% have been eradicated by humans.

Sharks simply cannot survive this onslaught without our protection and help. They have a slow growth rate, late maturity, low reproduction rates, and one of the longest gestation periods of any animal (up to 22 months). They cannot replenish themselves as quickly as we humans are killing them off.

Many sharks are caught as by-catch in fishing nets or as a result of long-line fishing practices. But the real culprit is shark-finning to feed the insatiable appetite, mostly in Asia, for shark fin soup—which can sell for as much as $100 USD a bowl. (Ironically, some shark fins contain toxic mercury that is potentially harmful to humans.) Singapore and Hong Kong are consistently the biggest importers of Indonesian shark fins, a principal source for the product. From 1996 to 2002, Indonesia exported over 1,595 metric tons of dried shark fins to Singapore alone. But the problem has stretched from China to Latin America to Africa and the United States.

The U.S. banned shark-finning in the Atlantic in 1993. But the practice exploded in the Pacific. In Honolulu, 2,289 sharks were landed in 1991. By 1998, the number jumped to 60,857—a 2,500% increase. Ninety-nine percent of the catch was for fins. The U.S. banned shark finning in federal waters in 2002, and barred U.S. vessels—anywhere in the world—and vessels of other nations in U.S. waters from possessing shark fins unless the rest of the shark’s carcass is also on board. Shark meat is considered of low value to fishermen.  continued

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