Fear is quite often the first feeling that comes over people when the word shark is mentioned but the truth of the matter is sharks have more reason to fear us. Movies like Jaws in the 1970's helped give sharks a bad name but the image created in movies is quite false. As a diver I have had many encounters with sharks and never in any way felt threatened in fact far from it, from my experience they are cautious around us and tend to move away if we get too close. Of course there are some sharks that are more aggressive than others but on the whole we have nothing to fear.
The truth is that sharks are becoming a rare sighting and that's all down to humans, savage trades like shark fining are largely responsible, a staggering 100 million sharks are killed every year and some feel that's a conservative estimate, based on them figures that means 11,416 are killed every hour, those sort of numbers are mind boggling when you compare that to a average of 4 to 5 human fatalities each year. Mosquito's kill 800,000 people worldwide annually and coconuts falling from trees claim 150.
In the past sharks would be on every dive site I would visit but 20 years down the line i'm finding I have to travel further afield to see these magnificent beasts, what should be a common occurrence has become a rare treat.
Even the largest shark on the planet the Whale shark is a target despite being a protected species, as a race we humans need to wake up and put pressure on governments to act now before we loose these apex predators, they are a essential part of the ecosystem and have to come off the menu. As a child of the seventies it was nature documentaries that sparked my interest in all ocean life, I had no idea how much things would change in my life time and at 53 I think i'm going to be around for a while to see things get worse, i'll finish with a chart of how sharks are racing to extinction at the hands of mankind it's sad reading.
https://www.debate.org/
You can get involved by supporting one of many proactive organizations here are a couple of my choices.
https://www.projectaware.org/ https://www.sharktrust.org /https://seashepherd.org/
Thanks for reading, please check out my other posts and stay safe folks.