Additionally shark depletion is affecting gas-exchanging phytoplankton. By eliminating the main predators of the animals that feed on phytoplankton and green algae we have a population boom of creatures, which are more and more rapidly consuming the annual bloom of phytoplankton.
This means that each year we are loosing more oxygen and gaining more carbon dioxide, which is the primary greenhouse gas responsible for global warming! The oceans produce 70% of our oxygen and control over 80% of the carbon dioxide produced. Without enough sharks this balance is failing.
This poses greater risks from typhoons, flooding, and heat related agricultural challenges and failure. In the oceans the rising sea temperatures are killing coral reefs that are the main nursery for hundreds of species of fish that are relied upon as a food source for humans as well as marine species.
This process is called coral bleaching and dead corals are replaced by red or brown algae that consumes O2 and produces CO2 as a by-product. This compounds the global warming issue, and well as leeching alkaloids from marine water, which causes acidification of the water. This in turn kills even more species.
Now setting aside the global implications for a moment and looking at local concerns sharks are extremely valuable both as a protective measure to balance and sustain the health of reefs, and as a draw to divers.
Eco-tourism and shark diving as massive industries and studies in Thailand, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa, the Galapagos, and other places around the world have all shown that dive tourism is a multi-million dollar trade that nets great amounts of money to those locations that cater to this industry. 48% of divers listed seeing sharks and stingrays as their number one reason to visit or dive a reef.
A dead shark fetches $1-3 a kilo for their flesh depending on the local economy. Their fins bring in $300-$700 a kilo. However live sharks can generate well over $200,000 a year if managed and marketed correctly to the dive tourism trade.
The profit margin and benefits of sharks alone should be enough to induce any logical Government in the world to support shark conservation and to act on these issues. But if that is not enough motivation there is a far more insidious and growing concern associated with sharks that needs to be addressed. This being toxins found in the bodies of sharks.
Today sharks have become the living repository of chemical pollution and waste that has been disposed of into the oceans of our planet. Ongoing studies continue to show greater and greater increases of mercury, lead, cadmium, POP’s (Persistent Organic Pollution) such as DDT and PCB’s in shark tissue. The health risks associated with consuming shark fin soup are significant and growing exponentially with each passing year. 10-200+ bowls (depending upon the species and location of harvest) can be debilitating to lethal for humans.
You are invited to study Minamata Bay Japan to see what happens when mercury poisoning is allowed to enter the human population via ocean food stocks. The carnage and destruction wrought on those afflicted with maladies and symptoms of mercury poisoning are devastating.
Mercury attacks the nervous system and the spine. It causes seizures, convulsions, loss of motor control, corrosion of the skin and mucous membranes, pain, deafness, blindness, loss of equilibrium, impotence, sterility, birth defects, death of fetus or unborn children, and is an antagonist and source of diseases such as Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and various cancers, and ultimately death. Understand that this is only a small list of the major adverse affects of ingesting mercury.
This does not include the affects of Lead and Cadmium poisoning (both also heavily present in sharks) which can manifest such wonderful symptoms as internal hemorrhaging and externally bleeding profusely out of every orifice as well as out of the eyes. This is again only a tiny mention of some of the broad spectrum of affects that these chemicals have on the human body.
It is a viable first step to make the fishing of or landing of any species that is listed as threatened, endangered, critically endangered, or at high risk/threat as being made illegal to fish for, land, or posses, in an effort to curb the destruction of shark stocks. We also wish to have mangrove swamps and other nurseries for young sharks set aside as protected marine reserves where shark fishing and poaching is forbidden in an effort to encourage the recovery of local shark populations.
