Today Is Shark Awareness Day! 🦈

Today (July 14th) is SHARK AWARENESS DAY! 🦈 🦈 🦈 🦈 🦈

There are over 500 species of sharks, and they've been on this planet for 400 million years.

Right now, they need our help. It's been estimated that over 100 million sharks are killed every year due to human activity. Many countries still legalize hunting sharks, including the abhorrent practice known as shark finning, where the fin of the shark is cut off and the shark is thrown back into the water to die. There's also a great deal of illegal shark hunting and finning going on as well.

As an apex predator, sharks are important for protecting the balance of life in the ocean. Sharks are considered an indicator species, meaning that when researchers notice sharks starting to go, it means the rest of the ecosystem is in peril. Right now, we have a president who hates sharks and has said he wishes they "were all dead". Whenever an attack happens, people call for shark cullings, even though, again, attacks are rare.

Many people are afraid of sharks. Only three species of sharks (the bull shark, the great white shark, and the tiger shark) are responsible for the vast majority of attacks and deaths, and even then they only kill less than 10 people a year, mostly because they confuse humans for their normal prey, such as seals, or are curious about us. More people are killed by mosquitoes, hippos, bees, elephants, crocodiles, lions, dogs, cows, snakes, and freshwater snails. That's right, you're more likely to be killed by a SNAIL than by a shark. Part of the hysteria around sharks has to do with films like Jaws. Steven Spielberg, the director of Jaws, and Peter Benchley, the author of the book the movie was based on, have both expressed deep regret for the impact their work had on fomenting anti-shark hysteria, with Benchley going as far as saying he wishes he never wrote Jaws, and went on to become an ocean conservationist after seeing the harmful effect anti-shark hysteria had on these wonderful creatures.

We can do more by supporting stronger enforcement of shark hunting and finning laws, and supporting laws that protect our oceans by preventing ocean pollution and establishing ocean reserves to protect their habitats.

Sharks are important, and we need to do everything we can to protect them.