Sharks, why are they important?

Blue sharks
The shark is for 425 to 455 million years on this planet. That’s a lot longer than us, as the humans. Everybody knows some shark species like the white shark, hammerhead shark, blue shark and the tiger shark, but there are more than 400 shark species. The sharks are part of the group of the cartilaginous skeletons.

Human and shark

Lots of people think that the shark is very dangerous. But in real there are only 4 – for the humans – dangerous shark species:

  • The tiger shark
  • The Oceanic whitetip shark
  • The bull shark
  • The white shark

Every year a lot more sharks die due to the humans than humans by sharks. Yearly sharks attack around the 100 humans. 20 of them die. But the humans kill yearly around the 100.000.000 sharks.

The importance of the shark

The last decade high numbers of sharks die and a lot of the shark species are now endangered. This is because of us, the humans. This will have a lot of consequences, because the shark is very important in the ecosystem, because they are the top predators of the oceans. Due to the decreasing population we will get pests of prey. These are also very bad for the fisheries, because lots of smaller fish species will die. The shark is also a scavenger, so they clean the ocean. Without the shark there will be a lot more bacteria’s and parasites, which will cause illnesses. Because the shark cleans the ocean, the oceans will stay healthy. In short, we need the shark.

Tim Huijsmans

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