SHARKS! SHARKS! SHARKS! SHARKS! SHARKS!
STOP SHARK FINNING!
ChallengerDeep urges you to become involved in the fight to save Sharks from indiscriminate slaughter. Shark finning, one of the greatest crimes Mankind has ever perpetrated on another species, threatens the existence of life on our planet.
Poachers remove a shark's fins while still alive and toss the victim back into the water to die a slow and agonizing death. Fueled by greed, a huge market exists in China and other Asian countries, where "shark fin soup" is considered a "delicacy". Some estimates have found that anywhere from 40 to 100 MILLION sharks are slaughtered each year. At least 8 species of shark have become "commercially extinct" in the last 5 years alone! Imagine what 100 MILLION corpses looks like.
The number of shark attacks averages about 65 worldwide annually, according to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida. Expect about 30 attacks in U.S. waters, mostly near Florida. In 2007 there was only one death, way over in New Caledonia in the South Pacific. A sad fact is that less than 100 people are attacked each year by sharks, usually by mistake (only 74 negative encounters worldwide in 2007). Most people that are attacked are involved in either high-risk activities such as spear-fishing, diving uncaged and unprotected in bloody, chum-filled water, or are surfing/ swimming the break over a drop-off...prime areas for sharks to hunt seals and sea lions.
Sharks are the apex predator in the world's oceans...they have existed for over 150 million years and ruled 70% of the planet, but they are certainly not vicious man-eaters. Their role in maintaining the entire ecological balance of the earth is immeasurable and their removal from the seas will result in an almost unimaginable cascade of unwanted and irrevocable changes to the health of our biosphere.
Sharks are not our enemy, yet we have declared war on them. Because sharks are not "cute and fuzzy" they have been viewed with repugnance by Humans. Hollywood portrayals of sharks have been horribly inaccurate and sensationalized. Frankly, if someone kills one elephant, the world is up in arms, but kill 100 million sharks and most people just shrug. This level of apathy is not acceptable. Our unjustified fear of this magnificant creature, fueled by Hollywood and fiction, is quickly leading to the destruction of our planet's natural balance. When we remove the apex predator from any balanced eco-system, the vacuum is not filled. Prey species over-populate, literally eating themselves out of existence and contributing to a nearly unstoppable collapse of the biomass. We have seen this happen time and time again; with the slaughter of wolves, large cats and bears has come an explosion of the herbivores that were naturally kept in balance by predation. The same thing is happening in the Seas as we indiscriminately slaughter the sharks.
We believe that it is much easier to develop an empathy for something if you know more about it. To that end, ChallengerDeep is actively involved in the promotion of knowledge and understanding about this magnificant animal.