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Why Is Killing Sharks Bad Essay

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Why is killing sharks bad?
Sharks play a vital role in the oceans in a way that the average fish does not. Most sharks serve as top predators at the marine food pyramid, and so play a critical role in ocean ecosystems. Directly or indirectly they regulate the natural balance of these ecosystems, at all levels, and so are an integral part of them. As they usually hunt old, weak or sick prey, they help to keep the prey population in good condition, healthy and strong, enabling these more naturally fit animals to reproduce and pass on their genes. The effects of removing sharks from ocean ecosystems, although complex and rather unpredictable, are very likely to be ecologically and economically damaging. Here are some reason why killing sharks is very bad:

1)Sharks are being fished at a rate faster than they can recover.
Due to overexploitation and lack of proper management, many shark species are under considerable risk of unrecoverable decline with some species having declined to near extinction in recent years. According to reports, sharks are being killed at an alarming rate of up to 273 million worldwide per year. Some experts predict that if …show more content…

Provided that sharks have not been fished out of certain areas it is reasonable to assume that their disappearance would be a result of the destruction of a suitable habitat. The fact that shark species are so diverse and inhabit every ocean on the planet makes them key players essential to the ocean environment. Yet despite their importance in the marine food-chain they remain a low conservation priority. For all their evolutionary success and apparent menace, sharks are incredibly fragile, unable to withstand the increased pressures forced on them by the voracious world fishing industries. This is partly due to the fact that sharks are slow growing animals that mature late, live long, and have a low reproduction

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