It’s a Gray Area:

Recently, one of my sons loaned me a video titled “Sharkwater,” which was created by Canadian filmmaker Rob Stewart. The thesis of the film is that unchecked hunting is decimating the world’s population of most types of sharks. Regretfully, based upon my inquiries, he appears to be right.

Sharks are one of the most vilified and misunderstood creatures on earth. Much of this is probably traced to Steven Spielberg’s movie “Jaws,” which left the public with a mindset that sharks are aggressive and always on the prowl for humans. They may be in a frenzy if there is blood in the water, but otherwise, all indications are that this is simply not true.

It is true that sharks are the top predator in the oceans of the world. But the average number of human deaths caused by shark attacks is only about 10 per year — worldwide. And very likely, all of those are caused by the sharks confusing a human swimmer or surfer for a sea lion, or some of its other natural prey.

And, of course, when there is a shark attack almost anywhere, that is a sensational story that invariably makes the news.

On the other hand, it is estimated that humans are now killing sharks at the rate of about 38 million per year. And since a female shark averages only about 1.2 pups every other year, and it takes about nine years for a shark to mature in the first place, sharks reproduce quite slowly. This means that their ranks are being seriously depleted.

Does it matter? Although the sharks’ involvement in nature’s balance is more complicated and involved than I am able to discuss, my information shows me that it makes a sizable difference because sharks keep the population of other species in check. So if we have fewer sharks, then there will be more sea lions, that will in turn be eating larger amounts of other fish, and more otters that will be eating larger amounts of clams, etc. So man’s interference with the way of nature can have huge repercussions.