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since it's shark awareness day, i thought i would share a few facts that you should know about sharks and cruelty against sharks! (thread below, TW for animal cruelty in text)
According to a study made by Florida Museum of Natural History, there were only 2 fatal cases out of 64 shark attacks WORLDWIDE in 2019. At the same time, it's estimated that we are killing around 100+ million sharks every year...
...Why are we killing so many sharks? one of the reasons is for the hydrocarbon squalane/squalene that can be found in the shark liver. It's used in makeup products like foundation, sunscreen, lipstic, etc. because of it's moisturizing powers. It can be harvested from-
plants as well, which according to Lush USA, is considered cheaper and more high quality than shark-based sqalene. That makes the roughly 3 million sharks that gets killed for this a year a total waste...
...Speaking of waste, a more known reason to why so many sharks are killed every year is because of shark fin soup. It's exactly what it sounds like, a soup made on shark fins.
To get the fins, the fishermen cut them off and throw the living shark back into the ocean, left to slowly die either by drowning or being eaten alive. This process is called "finning". Many countries and states has forbidden finning, but not the soup itself.
Did you know that after the release of Jaws in 1975, a shark hunting frenzy began? People believed sharks could hold grudges and ended up hunting them for sport.
According to research made by biologist Dr Julia Baum, there was a population decline of 89% hammerhead sharks, 79% in great whites and 65% in Tiger sharks. This was only between the years of 1986-2000, and only in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean.
The author of Jaws, Peter Benchley, never intened for this to happen and was not happy with the outcome. He spent the rest of his life campaigning for the protection of sharks.
Squalene, finning and people going crazy after having watched Jaws all together has caused catastrophic harm to the marine ecosystem.
As a more lighthearted fact, I thought I would bring up the cookie-cutter shark, a fierce cat-sized shark, who is known for destroying nuclear submarines back in the 1970s and even forcing them back to base for repairs!
TREY The Explainer did a fantastic video about when the cookie-cutter shark destroyed the submarines:
Another fun fact incoming: The greenland shark is estimated to live for around 400 years! It makes it the longest living vertebrate as far as we know. It's also very cute, it looks like an old grandpa (pic from the video “Oldest Shark in the World—512-Year-Old Greenland Shark”)
Sharks are overall amazing animals who deserves better. They extremely important to the ecosystem. I will now link some shark protection related organisations/petitions:
https://www.change.org/p/andy-casagrande-stop-shark-finning (TW graphic image)
The WWF has a lot of good information as well, https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/five-ways-sharks-and-rays-help-the-world
There we go! I hope you learned something new today, even though I kept everything very very short. Continue educating yourself about sharks and how you can help in the fight against finning and the usage of shark-based squalene!
