Shark Fishing Essay Topics

3078 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Introduction to shark finning

Lit Review
Sharks are some of the most feared predators by humans and of course my favorite animal. Their numbers are becoming dangerously close to extinction. The elimination of sharks would affect our entire ecosystem in ways we cannot even fathom. The biggest cause for the decline in shark population is shark fishing. Shark fishing is “the practice of cutting of the shark’s fins and throwing the still living shark back into the sea to die.” (Kettles) My goal is to explain how shark finning, which will lead to the extinction of sharks, will effect our environment and discuss the importance of their conservation.
As I mentioned earlier shark fishing is a cruel and inhumane practice by humans of cutting the fins off of live sharks. This wasteful technique uses about 1 percent of the sharks total body weight. Shark finning has been going on for thousands of years, but with the demand growing and the black market prices rising we are finding ourselves scrambling to try to help conserve our sharks.
The Ecologist posted an article by Nick Kettles Revealed: How Demand for Shark Fin Soup Fuels Bloody Harvest tells of the large amount of shark blood shed for the Chinese delicacy, shark fin soup. There are many efforts being set up to help the conservation of sharks but many fall short. One of the many reasons for this is that people flat out fear sharks. Why would they want to help an animal that has been portrayed as a dangerous and seeking to kill humans? The author of Jaws makes a point in saying he had no idea the impact his book and film would make on todays beachgoers. This attitude towards sharks needs to stop for shark conservation efforts to really take off.
Although many people fear sharks, almost a quarter of a million pe...

... middle of paper ...

...involved is to dive with sharks if you get the opportunity. Mentioned earlier was the importance of tourism on people’s views of sharks. Once out in the open with the creatures the divers will begin to care and want to see sharks protected. Another way is to speak out. Tell others about all the myths surrounding sharks, write articles to local newspapers, or contact community and government officials about your concerns. Sign petitions that will help to put a ban on shark finning and shark trade. Thousands of people are protesting against Western Australia’s Shark Cull. Carl Meyer defines a shark cull in Western Australia’s Shark Culls Lack Bite (and science) as the process of removing sharks from one area by capturing them or shooting them due to fear of attacks. Many are participating in protests because these actions will further diminish the shark population.

Show More
Related

  • Shark Culling Persuasive

    804 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Shark debate – to cull or not to cull, has been at the forefront of the minds of conservationists, as well as the general population for many decades now. The opinions of everyone are divided, according to their personal experiences, and views on what is right and wrong for the environment.

    Read More

  • Shark Culling should be abolished in Western Australia

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    So why do we need sharks? Well, Sharks help keep the ocean healthy and clean for over 450 million years. They also help remove half of the worlds green house gases and produces oxygen more than all of the rainforest's combined! Sharks are just as important as all the trees in the world because they have one thing in common, provide us with oxygen. Without the sharks help we wouldn't be able to get rid as much of the greenhouse gases as we want to, which means global warming would have a lower rate of happening faster. Most importantly they provide us with food. How? They would usually eat the old, sick or slower fish in the population of the ocean to the right size so the prey species don't cause harm to ecosystem by becoming to populated. They are also at the top of the food web. If all the sharks went extinct the entire food web would collapse causing many other species of fish to disappear. So instead of killing the sharks, we could lure them away to somewhere else. As they have a huge impact to the environment.

    Read More

  • Shark Nets Persuasive Speech

    1265 Words  | 3 Pages

    As they are at the top of the food chain, sharks play a very important role in the oceans in a way that an average fish does not. Sharks keep populations of other fish healthy and in proper proportion for their ecosystem. By preying on the old, sick or slower fish in a population, they prevent the spread of disease and prevent outbreaks that could be devastating. According to Ransom Myers from Shark savers, “sharks may be gone within the next decades if we continue to kill them, resulting in the loss of important foods that we depend on for survival, causing a marine ecosystem imbalance.” At the same time, I accept that shark nets could be useful, especially in shark infested areas that have been renowned as spots where many attacks have occurred, but I still believe, as you would, that scientists should spend more resources on working out why it is becoming more common for sharks to be entering shallower waters, looking for food – namely seals, who just happen to look like

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Shark Culling

    565 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the governments main reasons for culling the sharks is because they are coming in too close to the shores and becoming a potential threat to swimmers. But why is this happening? This is due to a change in shark feeding habits, but because they are eating more human of course not! Rather because us humans are over fishing and eliminating the fish/food sources of which sharks normally feed on. This is forcing sharks to come in closer to find food. Us as humans have forced sharks to come in closer and are now killing sharks because of our a...

    Read More

  • The Bull Sharks: A Description Of The Bull Shark

    922 Words  | 2 Pages

    The bull shark may be responsible for many shark attacks in the world but I believe that we have no right to kill them. Sharks are very important to animals food cycles and if the food cycles get messed up it can greatly effect the world. In fact, the bull shark is more vulnerable to human impact due to their ability to live in fresh and salt water but many sharks that are killed are for either shark fin soup or their liver oil. The sharks liver oil has many uses now but it started as a machine lubricant. Another way that sharks die is by recreational fishing. The sharks can get caught up in the fishermen's nets and eventually suffocate and die. As an environmental community, I feel like we need to inform people about shark habits and how to keep sharks safe. The water is their home and we are

    Read More

  • Shark Finning: The Persuasive Speech Against Shark Finning

    1381 Words  | 3 Pages

    Information (sub-point): The solution to the problem of shark finning is to sign petitions and force the government to pass legislature that will ban shark finning, as well as ban the import of shark fins. In 2000, Bill Clinton signed the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000 (SFPA), which “banned finning on any fishing vessel within United States territorial waters, and on all U.S.-flagged fishing vessels in international waters” (Speigel, 2011). Currently, it is also illegal to hunt sharks in many parts around the world due to various restrictions set by other government, but it is not illegal to import and sell shark fins. Finding shark fins in the US can be as easy as walking into an Asian restaurant and ordering shark fin soup. If we truly want to make a difference, and see a rise in the shark populations around the world, we need to ban the sell and trade of shark fins

    Read More

  • Shark Essay

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Chinese tradition, Shark fin soup is called as “a celebration soup”, which people eat it to celebrate in various occasions. Moreover, people also believed that shark fin consisted of diverse nutrition values which provide them virility, wealth, and power(Wolchover, 2011). These beliefs lead to the beginning of poaching for sharks, the top of food chain in the sea world. Surprisingly, although people are aware of the decreasing number of sharks since the old days, around hundred million of sharks are still hunted each year(Heltus, 2013), to be served on luxury tables surrounded by those believers in things that they do not even prove whether the belief is reliable. Therefore, in the generation that people are mostly educated, sharks should no longer have to be continuously killed for their fins.

    Read More

  • Semaphore Beach Case Study

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kish, P., 2012. Most Shark fishing is now banned from beaches and jetties in a year-long trial. [Online]

    Read More

  • Sharks and Conservation

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sharks have been on this earth for nearly 450 billion years. To put that into perspective, the first modern humans date back to about 60,000 years ago ("Our Mission: To save Sharks and Mantas”). Since then, both humans and sharks have evolved into the predatory mammals they are today. However, with the quick development of humans, civilization and technology, humans have not been able to fully understand the ways of sharks, although the motives of other human celebrities have been easy to understand and decipher. Because shark attacks have been becoming more televised, and sharks have been known to be more of a “threat” to humans, shark research foundations, such as the Shark Research Institute and the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, have been created to help give an understanding to these creatures. Over 100 million sharks are being killed each year, and there is a counter on the Bite-Back Shark and Marine Conservation website. As one spends more time on the home page, the number on the counter is constantly increasing, showing how many sharks are slaughtered in the year to come (“Bite-Back – Shark and Marine Conservation”). Even with research to show that sharks are valuable to the ocean and vulnerable, there are people that think otherwise (“The Pelagic Shark ...

    Read More

  • Shark Nets Research Paper

    582 Words  | 2 Pages

    The largest issue associated with the Queensland shark control program (QSCP) in Queensland is the considerable damage it causes to marine wildlife along the coastline. It is indiscriminate when killing marine animals that swim in close proximity to the shark nets. Between 2001 – 2003, 6250 sharks were caught on drum lines alone, 97% of which were considered as a conservation risk according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

    Read More

  • Brief Summary: The Collapse Of Shark Water

    685 Words  | 2 Pages

    Every year, there are about 100 million Sharks killed, ultimately for its commercial success. Their fins are used as the main ingredient for a dish so-called Shark soup. However, many are unaware of the actual importance of Sharks' existence on Earth. They do a number of things to control and balance aquatic life down below, which in return affects how we live on the surface. Sharks have existed in our world for over 400 million years, if they were to suddenly disappear for industrial purposes, much problems will be encountered throughout the world. We must preserve the lives of Sharks, for many reasons most importantly that shark hunting is morally wrong, it may provide economic failure in a given time, and it may serve a critical unbalance of a healthy environmental state.

    Read More

  • Shark Slaughter

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shark slaughter has led to shark populations being rapidly decimated all around the globe. Fishermen report that sharks are also getting smaller because they are not being given enough time to fully mature. Although there are other fish that are targeted more than sharks, they are not exactly affected by the kind of endangerment that sharks are currently experiencin...

    Read More

  • Sharks: Great White Sharks

    1577 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 2015 only 59 shark attacks have occurred around the world compared to the millions of sharks killed by humans every year. Due to these accidental shark attacks people tend to think that sharks, especially Great Whites are evil creatures with malice intentions when attacks do occur; but, on the contrary that is wrong. Sharks are not the only beautiful and unique creatures in the ocean, they also play a vital role in our ecosystem; however, due to human interference they might not be around much longer, through awareness sharks can be protected from endangerment.

    Read More

  • Importance of Sharks

    482 Words  | 1 Pages

    Thesis: Sharks should be conserved because they are an important part of the ocean, attacks are often incidental, and human behavior influences the behavior of sharks.

    Read More

  • Whale Shark Essay

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    Introduction One particularly interesting sea creature is the whale shark, formally known as Rhincondon typus; it was first discovered in 1828 by Andrew Smith (Rowat 2012). This large fish is found globally in warm tropical oceans and prefers to stay within 200 meters of the ocean’s surface in waters ranging from 4.2 to 28.7 degrees Celsius (Stevens 2006). This creature can be found all across the globe in warm tropical seas. Aggregations of whale sharks have been seen off the coast of Australia at times, although it is primarily a creature of solitude. Whale sharks are filter feeders that consume plankton as well as small fish and are harmless to humans.

    Read More

More about Shark Fishing Essay Topics

Open Document