Reflection on shark conservation again again
Humans have hunted sharks for sport, food, medicine, and leather for centuries, with little regard for the health of shark populations. Sports fishers around the world regard sharks as some of the most challenging fish to catch in the sea. Shark flesh is highly prized in many regions of the world. One particularly popular food made from shark meat, shark fin soup, is in such demand that some fishers hunt sharks just for their fins, throwing the rest of the fish back to the sea to die. Shark liver oil is a popular source of vitamin A, and some people believe that shark liver and cartilage are beneficial to human health. Shark skin, with its microscopic teethlike scales, was once used as a fine grade of sandpaper, and when the scales are removed from the skin to make shark leather, it brings high prices for use in shoes, belts, and handbags. Many sharks are killed unintentionally. Each year, thousands of sharks die in nets set out to catch other types of fish. Sometimes, humans kill sharks just because they fear them.Such activities have placed many shark populations in danger of extinction. For example, between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, populations of dusky sharks and sandbar sharks off the eastern coast of the United States declined by more than 80 percent. Internationally, the sand tiger shark and the great white shark are also in danger of extinction. Sharks grow slowly, reproduce late in their lives, and produce few offspring when they mate, making the natural rate of population replenishment very slow. If too many sharks in a particular area are killed, that population may never recover. For example, numbers of porbeagle sharks, swift, ocean-going sharks once commercially valuable, declined dramatically until, by 1960, commercial fishers could no longer catch enough of them to cover their expenses. Thirty years later, porbeagle populations still have not recovered.Sharks caught in high-seas fisheries are among the ocean’s most vulnerable animals. Their low reproductive rates make them particularly susceptible to overfishing in the face of increased demand for shark products. More than half of the shark species taken in high-seas fisheries are classified as Endangered, Vulnerable or Near Threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Three hammerhead sharks, oceanic whitetips, spiny dogfish, porbeagles, sandbar and dusky sharks have been proposed for a CITES Appendix II listing, which would closely monitor and control international trade. In addition to seeking protections for sharks, Pew Environment Group will also advocate for the protection of Atlantic bluefin tuna. A proposed Appendix I listing would prohibit international trade in the species.
Link as they help with the reflection= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Conservation_Act