14 DAY TRIAL // This week's issue of the journal Marine Policy witnessed the publication of a news study stating that roughly 100 million sharks are lost on a yearly basis.
While some of these sharks die because of natural causes, many others are killed by fishermen who wish to collect their fins and sell them.
According to the wildlife researchers who took the time to investigate this issue, having this many sharks die on a yearly basis means that these animals are likely to soon fall off the biodiversity map.
By the looks of it, this is because most sharks are known to reproduce at a rather slow pace, meaning that some species are caught and killed faster than they can rebuild their population.
This decline in the global shark population stands to affect marine ecosystems worldwide, simply because these animals are top predators and therefore in charge of keeping various other species well under control.
Newswise quotes Boris Worn, a professor of biology currently working with the University of Dalhousie, who made a case of how, “Sharks have persisted for at least 400 million years and are one of the oldest vertebrate groups on the planet. However, these predators are experiencing population declines significant enough to cause global concern.”
“This is a big concern because the loss of sharks can affect the wider ecosystem. In working with tiger sharks, we’ve seen that if we don’t have enough of these predators around, it causes cascading changes in the ecosystem, that trickle all the way down to marine plants,” one other wildlife researcher named Mike Heithaus commented on this issue.
All things considered, it appears that fishermen have recently taken a keen interest in hunting these animals because of an unexpected increase in the number of people who enjoy eating their fins.
More precisely, estimates show that one in fifteen sharks is killed for the sole purpose of providing for the food industry.
The researchers explain that, in order to protect sharks, one need not necessarily ditch the habit of eating their fins.
However, it is of utmost importance that fishing policies based on sustainability are rolled out and implemented as soon as possible.