The Relationship Between Overfishing and The Global Shark Population

Abstract

Sharks are the oldest species on Earth. Fossil records show that they roamed the ocean at least 420 million years ago. And modern sharks have been around for about 100 million years, which means they once lived with dinosaurs. Currently, there are over 500 species of sharks in the world. The oceanic shark population is impacted heavily by human pollution and fishing activities, the most serious of them is overfishing. Overfishing has caused a great loss of the shark population. Sharks are the second-most endangered vertebrate lineage after amphibians. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN's) first global assessment, which classified them as critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable based on the Red List of Threatened Species' criteria, one-quarter of them were in danger of going extinct. Sharks are now really in jeopardy due to this setback. The fact that marine sharks have long generation periods and many of species have intrinsically poor rates of population expansion is another contributing cause to this loss. This makes them really weak while facing destructive human activities. The research will pay its attention on the relationship between the causes of the shark population’s loss, the worldwide shark trade market, and how can human beings do to prevent the rate from keeping increasing. At last, this kind of activity can be stopped worldwide.