In my humble opinion, sharks have a bad reputation for no reason, or at least little reason. Here is a wonderful quote from my google search, "odds of being attacked by a shark":
Those seem like great odds to me. I will say that being attacked by a shark is scary to thing about. Sharks are big, strong, and really good at using their teeth (If they have them). But aggressive sharks that are likely to attack a human are limited to very few species, common ones being great whites and tiger sharks. One of my favorite sharks, however, is the basking shark.
These filter feeding sharks can open their mouths up to 1.2 meters to filter plankton and small invertebrates out of the water as they swim, often near the surface. They are about 7-9 meters in length, making them the second largest fish. Whale sharks are the only fish that surpasses them. They have no teeth, so no need to fear if you see one in the ocean!
Here is a neat image of relative shark sizes, with a human thrown into the mix:
Sharks are incredible animals. The more we learn about them, the less I think people will continue to fear them. Shark conservation is extremely important. Sharks can be caught as bycatch in fishing nets. They are also caught on purpose for their fins to make shark fin soup. Many estimates say over 100 million sharks are killed every year, but the real number could be as high as 273 million. Many sharks are a top predator in the food chain, and thus it is vital to the whole ecosystem to protect them. Many organizations fight to protect sharks, and often among those groups are survivors of shark attacks. You personally can protect sharks by sharing your knowledge with others! Tell them how important sharks are to ecosystems and how unlikely death by shark is. Selling shark products is legal in most places around the world, so be an informed consumer, know what you're buying, and support the companies that support sharks.
Happy shark week!
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