Sharks are becoming an endangered species more and more each day as we keep hunting them for trophies, meat, and other reasons. We need to save these magnificent animals for they hold a very important role in the ecosystem in our oceans. Shark meat is becoming a product that is very much in demand these days; approximately 125 countries are commercially fishing sharks. .
Sharks are not only being fished for their meat but for their fins, skins and organs. It is rumored that sharks provide a enzyme that can help fight cancer, so for that reason thousands of sharks are processed into cartilage pills each year. One cartilage plant in Costa Rica reportedly processes 235,000 sharks a month that is over 2.8 million sharks a year. On a worldwide scale an average of 704,000 tons of shark meat is sold annually each year. .
At this pace the shark is at serious risk of becoming an endangered species, today there are four sharks that are especially close to this and they are; The Dusky shark, Spiny Dogfish, Basking shark, and the Great White shark. These sharks have a life cycle that dose not support them being commercially fished, due to the fact that they are late to mature, have a slow growth, and low reproductive potential. The Great White for example grows about 25-30 cm per a year; it reaches full maturity in about nine years. The white shark will have a litter of about 7 to 9 pups at a time, but the only problem with that is that the females only reproduce about twice a lifetime.
We need to address these issues for two reasons they are, if we keep hunting and fishing these animals we will wipe out one of the oldest living relative to the dinosaur era. Additionally we can find some other way of enjoying the meat that they provide with out being the ones that are responsible for destroying the forever. .
If people like to eat sharks and want the skin then maybe we should treat them just like we treat the deer and elk by applying a tag fee and certain hunting seasons.