Young Writers Society

(jaws theme starts playing)

Wait! Before we go ANY farther, I need to point something out to you: you are more likely to be trampled to death by an elephant, gobbled up by a crocodile, struck by lightning, get stung to death by bees, or get hit on the head by a falling coconut than attacked by a shark. Your chance of getting attacked by a shark is about one in three hundred million. Yet, some people still think of sharks as "man-eaters." They are NOT. Most attacks are a case of mistaken identity, and sharks are actually extremely important to the marine ecosystems.

I am going to show you how indispensable sharks are to the oceans, and the effects that overhunting and finning are having on their populations.

Each year, up to 73 million sharks are killed for their fins, despite the fact that 30% of shark species are threatened, or nearly threatened with extinction. Shark finning is when fisherman catch sharks, slice off all their fins, and most of the time, toss the animals back into the ocean. Sharks need their fins to swim. Also, they get oxygen by moving water past their gills. So, if they don't have their fins, they can't swim, hunt, or get oxygen, so they die, by drowning and/or starvation.

As Joshua Reichert from the Christian Science Monitor puts it, shark finning is similar to the killing of millions of bison in the last century by hunters who simply cut out their tongues, and left the rest of the animal to rot on the plains, a practice that almost led to the extinction of the American buffalo.
About 1.7 million tons of fins are sold globally each year, and think, approximately 89% of the U.S. commercial catch is discarded! Part of the problem stems from the fact that hammerheads, blues, and other large species prized for their fins command relatively low prices for their meat, while those with valuable meat have low value fins. In addition, shark meat spoils so quickly that fin hunters would rather toss it overboard than be bothered with the necessary processing and refrigeration.

Okay, you might be asking: how is this a problem? This is just like catching fish and selling them! There's one major difference, though. Sharks are slow to recover from overhunting, because they are slow to reproduce. They take a long time to reach sexual maturity, between 12 and 15 years for a female great white, and up to 20 years or more for other species. Also, they don't produce very many offspring. Unlike, say, humpback salmon, which spawn several thousand eggs in only their second year, a lemon shark, for instance, cannot produce offspring until they age of 13. Then, when they do, they only produce about a dozen pups. They have reproductive adaptations of low fecundity, but high maternal investment in each embryo, similar to humans. As a result, sharks that are caught are either adolescents that have not had a chance to reproduce, or are among the few adults capable of birthing new pups.

Since sharks are slow to reproduce, they are most susceptible to overfishing than other species of animals. An overfishing of them cascades into a sudden uprising of the species they prey on, causing an abundance of skates, rays, and smaller sharks, which then steadily devastate populations of animals further down the food chain. This will lead to collateral damage on commercial food fisheries, fisheries that support large human populations around the world.
The author who write "Jaws", Peter Benchley, also wrote another book that included a short story that described perfectly what will happen if sharks are too heavily overfished.

Once there was a small village that made their living off of the reef and the ocean surrounding it. Some of the things they fished for were clams, oysters, mussels, and scallops. Some they ate, and some they sold to people in other towns, from which they bought necessities, such as fuel for their boats. Their biggest industry was fishing. People made sure to maintain a healthy, balanced ecosystem, because a lot of people's lives depended on it. First were the fishermen, then the mates who worked on the boats, wholesalers at the docks, truckers who transported the fish, restaurant workers who sold it, businesses that cleaned the linen in the restaurants, and, finally, the bankers who financed the businesses. The ripple effect spread out over a wide area.

There was also a colony of sea lions that lived near the town. People also knew that sharks roamed nearby, but nobody had ever been bitten, because they knew how to respect the sea and the animals in it. Nobody hunted for sharks, because one, people didn't like the taste of the meat, and two, there wasn't a market for it.
One day a foreign ship with giant spools of fishing lines came and sent out smaller boats to cruise up and down the reef. It stayed for three days. When it left, the first thing the fishermen noticed was all of the mutilated, dead sharks scattered over the reef. The sharks fins had been sliced off.

As much as the people in the village hated it, they couldn't do anything about it. Then, they thought that the food chain would still stay in balance, because other sharks will come from other areas to hunt. However, the ship had taken almost all of the sharks from reefs up and down the coastline.

After a few weeks, the fishermen noticed that they were catching fewer lobsters in their pots. Instead, they started finding octopus everywhere. Also, the sea lion population increased, and the number of fish declined. The sea lion colony spilled over into the harbor and made it stink SO bad that restaurants started losing customers. People were laid off, and had to move away. Then the lobster catches dropped. The fishermen who had borrowed money couldn't pay it back, and the banks were forced to take their boats.

As time passed, the sea lions grew unnaturally lean. The mothers spent so much energy diving deep for food for themselves, that they let their pups starve.

A student working on a high school paper discovered what had hurt the town, and it wasn't very hard to find. First, she looked at the top of the food chain, where sharks were. Sharks preyed on fish on the reef and octopus. When the sharks died, there was an overabundance of octopus. Since octopus eat lobster, there weren't any more lobsters to be found. Large sharks also prey upon the weak, sick, and malformed in the sea lion colony, leaving only the healthy ones to maintain it. When there weren't any sharks, there was a sea lion population explosion. Sharks are scavengers as well, so the dead sea lions weren't recycled, but left to rot, and become host to flies and other carriers of disease.
Gradually, over a period of time, the shark population slowly began to recover, and, as it did, so did the other species. What had caused this crash in the first place was that fishermen were using modern technology to take too many fish from the sea, much too quickly, not allowing species a chance to recover.

Eventually, after a lot of arguing, scientists created the Marine Protected Areas, or MPA's. One of these was located up the coast from the village, so that the eggs and larvae drifted south, and began to nourish the waters by the village.
As I see it, there are two things that are needed to reverse what has happened. The first is a total ban on the practice of finning and a workable international accord to preserve and effectively manage shark populations. According to Joshua Reichert, "The U.S. National Marine and Fisheries Service has outlawed shark finning in some coastal waters, and has prepared a draft plan for protecting shark populations, but there is little supervision and enforcement." Moreover, this problem is not limited to U.S. waters; it is global.

This leads to the second action required: ecotourism. Ecotourism is the practice of touring natural habitats in a way to minimize ecological impact. "It is the obvious answer to reversing the effects that harvesting is having on numbers of this magnificent species, and scientists here and overseas want to work towards that end with the government and ecotourism industry." said Joshua Reichert. The main way to do this is with diving. "It is clear that sharks are a good and sustainable business, but a shark swimming in a reef is much more valuable than a dead one, since it offers an attraction for diving activities." explained Marcus Ostrander, a biologist and recreational diver, and president of the Conomar Foundation of Panama. The diving industry that features whale sharks generates approximately $6.5 million every year in Western Australia. In the Maldives, divers spent $3.3 million a year to swim with a sharks, about a hundred times the value of exported shark meat! In the Bahamas, a single reef shark can generate $250,000 a year in the diving business, while a dead one will only bring $50 or $60.

If we can promote ecotourism, and pass laws that ban the practice of shark finning, then we can eventually restore shark populations to healthy levels, and our oceans to their natural equilibrium. It's a worthwhile goal.

'Ello, Mello! I'm Esther and your little article caught my eye, so here I am. *sparkles*

First off, I love your title. It let's the reader know exactly what this article will be about without being obvious. The meaning of your article is something readers care about, so let's make it shine the best we can.

Your presentation of this piece is off. I get the sense you are trying to be friendly with readers; making this kind of a tete et tete kind of article. That's all well and good, but you have to know that articles, even friendly ones, have to be at least well structured, with easily visible valid points and good transitions. I'm not saying go all essay on everyone, but I think some more professionalism will let your readers take you more seriously. For example, instead of capitalizing words for emphasis, make them italicized. It doesn't take much more effort to do so, and it looks a whole lot better than THIS. CAPS are generally frowned upon, but you can use them.

My next comment is just a nitpick. I think spelling out your numbers is better than just typing them out. Here's a fancy rule you may not know

Spell out numbers that are not more than two words long. Like seventy-three.

It isn't a must, but it would look cleaner and less choppy if you did it like that. Don't worry about your percentages because they are always supposed to be in number form.

Third, your article is great. Why not make it look great, too. Have spaces between your paragraphs like in this review. It makes it look more accessible than a giant block of text.

I know this isn't an essay, but I wish your transitions were a little less choppy:

I am going to show you how indispensable sharks are to the oceans, and the effects that overhunting and finning are having on their populations.

Instead of just saying "I'm going to show you this", consider making more of a transition to the next part of the article. Like saying, "While sharks are really indispensable to the ocean, the effects of over hunting and finning are hurting their populations.

Also, all of your information is obviously well studied and interesting, but sometimes seems out of place, like you are just fitting as much information in as possible without putting it in order.

The author who write "Jaws", Peter Benchley, also wrote another book that included a short story that described perfectly what will happen if sharks are too heavily overfished.

Like this line. You make it a paragraph by itself, when it really isn't enough info to stand alone. See any information bits that don't really stand alone and include them in your main paragraphs. Your Jaws paragraph would fit perfectly into the over fishing paragraph.

OVERALL:

I enjoyed this so much. I learned many new things. You should improve on your format so it's more readable, though. Consider telling your readers what you'll be talking about and in what order, so everything looks organized. If a fact doesn't make sense, but fits into another section, put it in that said section, other wise, get rid of it. Thanks for the read.

Esther

I like this overall, but the beginning bothers me. Rather than saying that you're more likely to die from elephants/crocodiles/killer bees - which then, in my opinion, gives those animals a bad name instead of sharks - maybe use something like what was in a book about fish that I had in my childhood: There are more car crashes in a single holiday weekend than there are shark attacks in a year. (And yet, we're afraid of sharks, not cars...?)

Also, I'm curious - WHY do people cut off sharks' fins and then throw the shark back in the ocean? Why do we sell shark fins? I don't know that it's important to the article, but I personally want to know.

~Blue

I read an article whether or not the English language is sexist or not. I guess it is. But not just the English language is sexist, sharks are too! Why do sharks only eat men, I wondered at first? But then I continued reading your essay and saw that they are actually NOT men eaters. They must be women eaters, I suppose. Obviously, when they eat a man, it is because of an identity switch. Poor soul!

You state the goal of your essay here: “I am going to show you how indispensable sharks are to the oceans, and the effects that overhunting and finning are having on their populations.” But then you include sea-lions, scallops etc. into the game. While your essay indeed explains what you write in your goal, you end with the conclusion: “If we can promote ecotourism, and pass laws that ban the practice of shark finning, then we can eventually restore shark populations to healthy levels, and our oceans to their natural equilibrium. It's a worthwhile goal.” Goal and conclusion do not match up.

Hope this makes sense!

Hello, BlueAfrica, I think I can answer your question.
People are cutting off sharks' fins to make shark fin soup, which is a delicacy in places such as Asia (can cost up to $100 a bowl). People sell shark fins in order to make that soup.
Did that help?