Shark

Sharks Keep the Balance

      Sharks, tuna, dolphins, porpoises, and toothed whales and keep the oceans ecosystem in balance.       Reduce overfishing. Overfishing puts 1/3 of sharks, rays, and chimaeras (ghost sharks) at risk of extinction. 17%, over 2000, fish species are at risk of extinction, including sharks, rays, and coelacanths.  Illegal fishing catches around 30% of the catch of high value fish (WWF).   Illegal industrial fishing deprives local communities of fish.  
      Regulate shark fishing.  Ban hunting sharks for their fins.  Ban the sale of shark fins.   Replace metal leads on shark fishing lines with monofilament, so that sharks can chew through the line and escape.  Change the ”J” shaped shark fishing hook for a semicircular “C” shaped hook.  
       End illegal fishing. Create marine protected areas.  Trawling with large nets often catches  and kills sharks, whales, dolphins, turtles, and non- target fish.  
       Ban Deep sea mining.  The Trump administration is pushing deep sea mining.  Many countries  and scientists fear such mining will destroy the oceans’ interdependent web of life. 
  More info:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/shark-jaws-extinction-conservation-wild
https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/magazine/entry/saving-the-endangered-oceanic-whitetip-shark-from-extinction

https://wildaid.org/programs/sharks
https://sharkstewards.org/
https://www.safesharks.org/safe-conservation-plan
https://www.sharkconservationfund.org
https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/fish/

    Love oceans.  Sperm whales dive  3,000 feet to find, battle, and eat giant squid. The ocean deep is full of glow-in-the-dark fish, anemones, jumbo octopuses, and many wondrously strange creatures.  

     Sea creatures have many bizarre names, shapes and colors. These two books have lots of neat photos of fish: The Underworld by Susan Casey and The Deep Ocean by Michael Vecchione, Louise Allcock, Imants Priede, and Hans van Haren.  Here are sea creature names: viperfish, lanternfish, glass squid, exquisite jelly,  comb  jelly, barrel eyes, holothurians, deep sea anemone, glass sponges,  bamboo corals, , stalked ascidian, rattails, robust assfish, amphipods, hadal snailfish, cutthroat eel, pelagic  decapod shrimp, two arm ctenophore, deep Humboldt sea squid, cusk eel, bristlemouth, endemic jelly fish, false boarfish (lives at  3000- 3900  feet deep  underwater),orange roughy (over fished,  lives 140 years), giant isopods, sea spiders, crocodile icefish, rock cod, walrus, seals, sea buttery,  nematode worms, copepods, bowhead whale, belugas, nautilus, cat shark, hatchet fish,  dragon fish, lantern fish, Patagonia toothfish (over fished), pacific ocea perch, (lives 100 years), alfonsino, pteropods ( shell threatened by acidification), deep sea corals, Murrays Abysmal Anglefish, and corals.

Artist:  William Brooks