Hasmukh Chand posted: " The thought of sharks inspires fear in most people. They are seen as vicious man-eaters that cruise the coastlines looking for an easy meal. Places like the United States, South Africa and Australia often make it on the list of places where shark att" Conservation, Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development
The thought of sharks inspires fear in most people. They are seen as vicious man-eaters that cruise the coastlines looking for an easy meal. Places like the United States, South Africa and Australia often make it on the list of places where shark attacks on humans occur. Sometimes, these attacks turn fatal. Much of the misunderstanding and fear can be traced back to the movie Jaws by Steven Spielberg (based on the adaptation of Peter Benchley's novel). This ideology distracts us from the critical role that sharks play in maintaining the health and vitality of our oceans, their totemic importance in many Pacific cultures and instills us with apathy when it comes to the significant loss of sharks every year.
In Emperors of the Deep author William McKeever attempts to shed a light on sharks and address some of these misunderstandings. To do this, he focuses his book on the four species of sharks that are most feared; Great White, Hammerhead, Tiger Shark and the Mako. The first half of the book is incredibly fascinating as it is loaded with great facts about these shark species. For example, all sharks have a lateral line that runs the length of their body. The lateral line helps sharks detect movement, vibration and pressure gradients of the surrounding water and together with their keen sense of smell, helps sharks track and hunt prey. Or the fact that Greenland sharks are the longest living vertebrate animal on earth (they can live for 400 years).
The fact that is most striking though is that millions (100 million or more) of sharks are directly or indirectly killed each year. These deaths are attributed to fishing for sharks for their fins to make soup (for people in South-east Asia, namely Hong-Kong and China. The sharks are often finned on deck, then the shark is tossed overboard where it slowly drowns as it sinks), but also for a substance called squalene which is a key ingredient in making cosmetics. Other targeted killings of sharks occur during shark fishing tournaments. McKeever touches on these tournaments and rightfully points out that in some ways this form of killing sharks is much more insidious. Namely for the fact that hunters target the largest sharks and when large animals are removed from the ecosystem, the ability of the strongest individuals to pass on their genes stops. This is particularly important in the context of sharks as larger individuals are also those that are of breeding age. Further, removing large sharks weakens an ecosystem's ability to recover from disturbances such as climate change and overfishing.
"In every ecosystem, apex predators maintain that balance crucial to the pyramid of life. If apex predators are harmed, trophic cascades reverberate throughout the system" (pg. 275)
The biggest contributor to the indirect killing of sharks (and other marine animals) is large-scale commercial fishing, specifically the tuna industry. The loss of sharks (and other marine animals) is known as 'by-catch', a result of the large nets that fishing ships drag behind them that indiscriminately catches everything in its path. Some commercial fishing is just as insidious towards their staff as they are to sharks with many reports of slave and forced labor, particularly, of men and boys from south-east Asia.
"Tuna is cheap, and it's cheap for a reason. The labor behind the fishing is free. Yet if one adds up the real cost in death and destruction than tuna is very expensive. Blood is figuratively all over the can" (pg. 182)
Emperors of the Deep is a handy book for anyone who is interested in sharks and shark facts. The second half of the book does bog down a little though as the cool shark facts give way to conservation issues. This would have been fine if the author had spent a bit more time discussing shark conservation stories and approaches for overall balance but sadly this seems truncated. However, the book is well written and the passion for sharks that the author has is infectious. Indeed, after reading about the impacts of commercial tuna fishing on sharks, I have decided to eat less tuna. I'd happily recommend this book to anyone who is interested in sharks.
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