Why You Should Care About Sharks: The Average Guide For The Landlocked American
pic from this website (along with some very useful information!)
Well, to being with, sharks are ridiculously cute. I mean, look at them! They’re not called sea puppies for nothing.
On a serious note, sharks are incredibly important animals, and are credited with being some of the most integral parts of maintaining a healthy ocean ecosystem.
Think of sharks as Libras. Requiring and creating perfect balance, sharks are often indicators of healthy coral reefs, as they are apex predators. Remove them from the equation and everything gets thrown off balance. The population of their prey booms since they don’t have a natural predator anymore. With this booming population of one specific species, their next- in- line prey populations get severely depleted and could cause whole fishing industries to collapse. Not to mention the highly detrimental effect this ecological cascade would have on the oceans health. Other climate threats would have greater, more dangerous impacts on us as the health of the ocean would be horribly compromised.
Sharks are doctors! Kind of. In an ‘eating their patient’ sort of way. Sharks usually prey upon slower, infected fish that are weaker ones in the school, which naturally stops these pathogens from infecting other fish, while simultaneously strengthening the health of the school and ensuring that younger fish have stronger offspring.
Long story short, certain shark species are pretty instrumental in providing us with oxygen. Certain shark species, like Tiger sharks, help maintain an ecological balance in seagrass beds, which release up to 10 liters of oxygen per 1 square mile of seagrass ( Gould, 2018). I’ve seen degraded seagrass beds firsthand, primarily because of unethical construction practices. Barren, silty, devoid of sharks and any marine life- damaged seagrass beds are incredibly unhealthy ecosystems and cause many problems for both fish and humans.
In my next post, I’m going to talk about some lesser known ways that sharks are threatened, as well as what we can do about it.
In the meantime, stay Jawsome!
