The famous line from the 1975 movie Jaws, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” has been imprinted in film fanatics’ minds since the release of the blockbuster movie 45 years ago. This film has in no small way helped to instil a fear of sharks for the past half a century.
This flick has changed the public’s perception of these creatures, especially great whites. Some readers may not know this but Jaws was loosely based on a true incident that took place in 1916, whereby a great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) attacked a swimmer in New Jersey, the US.
According to George Burgess, director of the Florida Programme for Shark Research, after the movie was released, fishers set out to search for their trophy shark. Guiltless and merciless fishing practices of these so-called ‘prized’ catches resulted in a massive drop in shark populations on a global scale.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the capture of great white sharks has risen over the years, resulting in carcharodon carcharias being classified as critically endangered.
One of the largest ever recorded great whites was caught in Maltese seas in 1987 by a local fisher. Measuring seven metres in length, it was one of the largest catches at that time. To get an idea of the shark’s size caught, a dolphin, a blue shark and a turtle were found in the shark’s stomach.
According to the Florida Museum and the University of Florida, in 2019, 140 alleged shark attacks occurred globally, but only 64 of these attacks were unprovoked, whereby humans happened to be in or near the sharks’ habitat. So one can assume that these were unlucky circumstances and not vengeful sharks who seem to hold a grudge as those depicted in Hollywood movies.
Nowadays, the main threat to sharks is shark-finning. Shark-finning is defined as the practice of slicing off a shark’s dorsal, pelvic, anal and caudal fins, while the rest of the shark’s remains are discarded into the sea, making it a highly unsustainable fishing practice. This is an issue that has reached global media and has been raised by several environmental entities on a worldwide scale. Shark-finning is mainly carried out for controversial uses, such as to make shark fin soup, which is considered a traditional and expensive Chinese delicacy.
According to a study carried out by Clarke and Bjorndal in 2007, titled ‘Social, Economic, and Regulatory Drivers of Shark Fin Trade’, shark fins have also been used in traditional Chinese medicine since 618-907 AD. It is thought shark fins were used to strengthen the blood or as a tonic during the winter season.
Sharks are also threatened by derelict fishing gear in which they get entangled, and when they get captured as bycatch and later discarded ‒ as some sharks are considered to be endangered or due to a limited gap in the market for these organisms. The restructuring of the Common Fisheries Policy in 2013 aimed to cut down discards by recording the species captured prior to discarding, which is an integral aspect of monitoring non-target species.
Even though sharks are considered to be apex predators in our oceans, we humans are more of a threat to them than they are to us. Sharks tend to mature at later stages in their life and they only give birth to a few pups, making them highly vulnerable creatures to human practices.
Sharks should be conserved and given the respect they deserve as they play an important role in the overall health of our seas due to their status as top predators of the food chain.
Matthew Laspina has just concluded his BSc in fish management at the MCAST Institute of Applied Sciences and is about to start his MSc in international marine science at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland.