Tofeed a hungry world, to protect carbon sinks (like forests and oceans), to keep the whole world healthier and massively abundant with life, we need sharks. Protecting sharks helps ocean health, and accordingly — all lives and biodiversity — in more ways than we even know of, yet.
Sharks are fish, and are fished for food. But, they are over-fished now ; often with destructive methods. Culturally, they get a bad rap, which sends a message that wholesale slaughter of some animals is “Okay.”
Simple tweaks to the system, and especially toward our attitudes about sharks, can help defend the whole ocean and it’s vitally important food webs and systems.
If Trump fell in the ocean near a shark, it is highly unlikely unlikely he would be attacked. First of all, most sharks are very small, nurse sharks, reef sharks, dusky sharks, and so on. Even great whites start out as babies. Most sharks are remarkably placid, although inquisitive, unless you are a tasty (not a wet-suited, rubberized) fish.
Charlize Zmuda died of shark injuries in Australia recently. Her family urged that their community continued to enjoy water sports and swimming beaches, even as they mourn her. Australians who love the ocean know that sharks are important members of the food web and the awesome wonder that protects “down under.”
Since 2000, Ms. Zmuda would be the 18th person to die from shark injuries. The ocean if far more dangerous for sharks, as they are killed by the hundreds of thousands each day. Some by over-fishing, some by gill nets and bycatch. Then there is also pollution, reef acidification (very bad on Australia’s great barrier reef) and too much ocean heating.
Evolved 400 million years to be lip stick?
Sharks are utterly amazing and magnificent. Their reputation is undeserved since we eat them and they very, very seldom eat us. We also torture them. Wear them in shark skin suits. Carry them as bags and purses. Apply them on our lips, (as squalene). We demonize them in fiction. And more.
Unintentionally perhaps, people are willing to hurt living beings if it means their own lives are perceived as richer or better. In this way, although people who project their own flaws onto innocent animals, we come to believe that person is somehow powerful and dangers have been minimized.
Exploitation of others is not power, but weakness. It does look like power for those who don’t understand the hundreds of millions of years of grand evolution and beauty the world presents. Or, those who somehow think nature can belong to us more than we belong to nature.
There are over 500 species of sharks, and they have cruised around the world for over 400 million years. That’s a true force, and we all should be seduced by the shark side of the force.
Our comparative, puny 200,000 year presence seems young and immature in comparison, yet we too are a force. Yet, we don’t have to be a destructive force.
Like Zmuda’s family telling us to celebrate the ocean and how all life oceans connect us too, we have better examples of how to behave. It’s also psychotically, and spiritually, vital to have oceans providing their beauty and biodiversity. We were once a much smaller force ourselves on Earth. Prior to the industrial age, sapiens did not even number one billion people. That happened in 1803. Oceans were very much in a sense “too big to fail.” They did, and still due, represent a wealth of assets that the whole world needs. But, Oceans also created a sense of something larger than the self, something powerful, and incredibly beautiful. These are psychological and spiritual needs we still must attend to today.
When we really get to know and comprehend life’s complexity and wonder, any person can be thrilled to see a shark. To do so teaches us not to believe the lies about them. You are better off also knowing the truth about them; which is that we don’t have to be needlessly cruel to most living beings, even one another.
I don’t believe you should swim up and hug every shark you see. However, knowing there are things greater than us, and more mysterious than us, is beneficial to all beings. Appreciation, respect, awe, and even reverence of the creation is better than fear.
You will benefit by knowing they are mighty. And important. Knowing the truth about the ocean is like knowing the truth about land. It can only sustain us if we sustain it.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash
