endangered sharks: Blog 6: Jenna Elliott

 Sharks are becoming endangered due to the result of human activities and the impact that they are having. The main threats for sharks are commercial shark finning and entanglement in commercial fishing gear. Other things that are threatening the sharks is habitat degradation and climate change. There are multiple different shark species that are endangered: 

1) The Great white shark 

        Great white sharks are one of the species that we hear more about than the other species. The great white sharks receive media attention due to the late film series Jaws and news about shark attacks. This species of shark is usually known for their reputation of being a ferocious man-eating species. In all actuality humans are not the great whites preferred pray. These animals are also victims of beach meshing, media-fanned campaigns to kill the animal after a biting accident has occurred and degradation of inshore habitats which are used as pupping and nursery grounds. 

2) The Basking shark 

    This species of shark is slow-moving and generally harmless. They get their name from the fact that they bask in shallow temperatures where they also like to feed. This species is a very large sized animal. The basking shark is seen in a few favored coast locations and probably never abundant due to the decline in the shark population as a whole. The reason that this species is endangered is because the animals fins are the most valuable within the international trade. The cartilage is used for traditional Chinese medicines or sometimes as an aphrodisiac in countries such as Japan. 

3) Brown Shyshark

    This species live along less than 1,000 km of coastline off of the coast of South Africa in the Western Atlantic Ocean. This species is a small stocky shark with a broad head, and very large nostrils and appear to be very site-specific. Although they appear to be an abundant inshore species, it is commonly caught by rock and surf anglers. Taken as discarded bycatch in recreational fishing activities. These animals are usually a nuisance by the fishermen. There is a continuous decline in the quality of their inshore habitat due to heavy human utilization. 

4) Smoothback angel shark 

    The smoothback angel shark inhabits in the Southwest Atlantic from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil through Uruguay to. Beunos Aries Province, Argentina on the continental shelf and slope at depths of 10-350 meters. This species is known for its smooth back which you could gather from the species name. Their low reproductive potential together with the animals vulnerability to trawl and gillnet gear make it highly susceptible to a decrease of population. One serious issue that these animals are facing is over fishing.

 

There are a total of 15 endangered shark species. I chose the three that most interested me to talk about in this blog post. All 14 endangered shark species are the great white shark, the basking shark, the dusky shark, the brown shyshark, the sand tiger shark, the porbeagle shark, the scalloped hammerhead shark, the whale shark, the smoothback angel shark, the daggernose shark, the sawback angel shark, the striped smooth-hound, the pondicherry shark, the ganges shark, and the northern river shark. 

https://oceanscubadive.com/most-endangered-sharks-in-the-world/