Education
Call for Action
At Swimmers For Sharks, we are committed to the protection and education about our world's sharks. We are visitors in our sharks' ocean, yet their livelihood and survival are at risk because of human interference. Through providing accurate information, links and access to research and fundraising, our hope is to help in the any small way to the growth of the world's shark population.
Awareness
Since our founding in 2021, Swimmers For Sharks has made a significant impact on environmental action and practice. We have successfully advocated for stronger regulations on pollution, promote beach clean up, supported fundraising measures, and helped to protect and restore our marine habitats. We have volunteered and supported advocacy groups who fight for marine conservation and clean oceans. We must protect our marine animals and the ocean they call home.
Do you know that over 100 million sharks are slaughtered every year? They are caught, regardless of size and age, and their fins brutally cut off, and then the shark is thrown back in the water to die.
The shark fin trade has been banned in 11 states, but more work is being done. Check out the site https://www.sharks.org/
and help!!!
Common Misconceptions
At Swimmers For Sharks, we love the ocean, and respect the water. We are visitors in these waters, and we need to respect and protect sharks and all marine life. There are five leading misconceptions about sharks, according to the New England Aquarium https://neaq.org/the-five-shark-myths-debunked/
MYTHS:
1. All Sharks are Dangerous - all sharks are not dangerous, but because of movies and pop culture we all too often imagine sharks as predators to humans. In fact, shark bites on human are rare, and most sharks eat fish and crustaceans, with the largest sharks actually eating plankton because they are filter-feeders!
2. Sharks have no predators - sadly, humans are the main predator to sharks. Many sharks are apex predators, but sharks are attacked by orca whales and other sharks.
3. Sharks smell blood from miles away - sharks do have an impressive ability to detect a small amount of blood in a large area of water, but it depends upon the currents and environmental factors.
4. Megalodon sharks live!!! - there is no scientific evidence that the Otodus megalodon, or the megalodon shark still exists today. They went extinct 5 million years ago, but did grow to 60 feet in length. Very impressive, but we are not going to see one swimming by.
5. Sharks have to swim to stay alive - some species do have to continuously swim to breathe and stay alive, but not all do. Those species that have to swim constantly are called obligate ram ventilators, and the swimming forces water into their mouths and over their gills so that they can breathe There are some sharks that can remain still and still breathe.
Threats To Sharks
Shark Finning - Shark Finning is the action of cutting off a shark's fin, usually when the shark is still alive, and dumping the shark back into the ocean to die. The fins collected from this terrible action are used for shark fin soup which is a dish often associated with wealth and festivity in East Asia. Shark fins are also used for meat, leather, and health supplements. Around 72 million sharks are killed annually for shark fin soup. Many endangered species such as the Scalloped Hammerhead and the Great Hammerhead are also exploited for their fins which heavily impacts these endangered populations. Although there are laws such as the Shark Finning Prohibition Act which protects sharks against finning, the practice is still a major issue.
Over Fishing - Over Fishing is when a species is removed from their habitat at a faster rate than they can reproduce. Due to over fishing from large fisheries, 100% of threatened sharks are impacted by overfish according to Shark Trust. Over fishing is also the only threat to 67% of shark species making it a huge threat to sharks' survival. This issue is worsened because sharks have very low and slow reproduction rates. If sharks continue to be removed from their environments, and they can't reproduce quickly enough, many species of sharks will go extinct.
Ocean Pollution - Ocean Pollution and more specifically, microplastic pollution heavily affects sharks. Microplastics are extremely small pieces of plastic that are less than 5 millimeters. They come from microbeads or plastics that have broken down into extremely small pieces. Despite their extremely small size, microplastics pose a huge threat. Microplastics often end up in the ocean where they are ingested by marine life. Ingesting microplastics can cause cancer, intestinal blockage, loss of nutrition, internal injury, starvation, and death. Sharks can ingest microplastics by eating fish that have ingested microplastics or through filter feeding since microplastics look very similar to plankton and algae. Sharks live for about 20-100 years so they accumulate a lot of microplastics over their life times. Sharks are even one of the species found to have the highest amount of microplastics within them. Microplastics specifically affect sharks by reducing reproduction, causing intestinal damage, increasing toxin levels, causing starvation, endocrine disruption, altering migration patterns, and affecting sharks' immune systems. All of these affects pushes sharks closer to extinction.
Humane Society International - https://www.hsi.org/issues/shark-finning/
National Ocean Service - https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/microplastics.html
Shark Trust - https://www.sharktrust.org/shark-threats
Marine Megafauna Foundation - https://marinemegafauna.org/human-threats-sharks-rays/ocean-pollution#:~:text=Pollutants%20typically%20bioaccumulate%2C%20where%20the,within%20their%20prey%20species%20too.
National Marine Sanctuary Foundation - https://marinesanctuary.org/blog/sharks-fact-or-fiction/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwx-CyBhAqEiwAeOcTdRteflsJIDIAAP3UglrVOH5nqCX2wxxFxg7PtavPv2_OBCz2taNGJxoC96IQAvD_BwE
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do sharks attack humans?
In most cases, sharks don't really "attack" a human, they are investigating. To a shark, someone's foot which is tan on the top and pale on the bottom can look very similar to a fish in a shallow water environment. Similarly, a human on a surfboard looks like a fish or a seal from an underwater perspective. When a shark "attacks" a human, it is usually investigating the human in their environment. Sharks investigate foreign objects with their mouths much like how a dog sniffs a toy. Think of a shark's mouth like another organ - sharks teeth or mouth objects they are unfamiliar with to determine what it is. This causes sharks to nibble or bite objects they don't recognize which is the cause of most "shark attacks." Another explanation is that a human happens to be in a shark's hunting spot. Sharks live by a dominance hierarchy which means the largest shark gets the best hunting spot. If a human is in a sharks feeding area, a shark may be threatened by their presence and react more aggressively. Overall, sharks do not want to attack humans. In most accounts of shark attacks (which a very rare) the person involved is injured because sharks do not want to eat or kill humans. Most human encounters with sharks are peaceful.
If sharks don't want to attack humans, then why are there so many shark attacks?
Shark attacks are actually much less common than most people think. It only feels like there are many shark attacks because these rare occurrences are heavily covered by the media. Shark attacks are very rare but when one does occur, everyone knows about it. This is extremely sad because there are more peaceful encounters with sharks than there are harmful encounters. Unfortunately, these peaceful accounts are usually not reported or covered by the media causing sharks to have a very bad reputation. In addition to this, the human population continues to rapidly increase. This means that there are more people in the ocean or intruding upon sharks' environments. This also makes it seem like there are more shark attacks but in reality, there are just more people! When there are more people in the water, there are bound to be more encounters with sharks both peaceful and not peaceful. The proportion of shark attacks is not increasing when compared with the human population, it has actually decreased in the past few years. Climate change has also played a role in shark and human interaction. As the climate has changed, prey and predator distribution has also changed. Climate change has caused the ocean to get warmer causing movement of marine life based on conditions they need for survival. This has in turn caused movement of sharks to new locations to follow prey. This movement has caused increased shark and human interaction.
US National Science Foundation - https://new.nsf.gov/news/truth-about-sharks#:~:text=(Whitney)%20Sharks%20don't,surprisingly%20dexterous%20with%20their%20mouths.
Image - https://www.snexplores.org/article/lets-learn-about-sharks