Here at thebirdonfire.org, we’re trying something new. Rather than chasing down any “sophisticated schoolyard shenanigan” (our site’s tagline), we’ve embued our Student Editor of the Week with the power to NAME A THEME. Junior Luke Langlois is up first as Student Editor. He claims as his theme Aquatic. So, our student bloggers submit to you subjects and posts that fall under this week’s theme: Aquatic. Holden answers with . . . Sharks.

Sharks Deserve More Love

By Holden Hartle

Since the release of Jaws in 1975, sharks have become one of the top fears among Americans. The thought of a Great White clamping down on a leg is a terrifying thought. In 2017, Chapman University conducted a survey that showed that about 25% of people are afraid of sharks. More people are afraid of sharks than of hurricanes, public speaking, and everyday crimes like a mugging. The fear of sharks is even more prevalent than the existential fear of dying.

But, consider this, in 2018, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History, there were a total of 130 shark attacks worldwide. Of those 130, 66 were unprovoked and 34 were provoked. The other 30 attacks were due to things like boat attacks or attacks that happened post-mortem. With all of this in mind, there are predictions that somewhere around 70 million people went to a beach in 2018. Some quick division will tell you that you have a 0.000185714% chance of being a victim of a shark attack. This number drops by almost 20% if you don’t provoke the shark.

Let’s look at things from the shark’s perspective. Out of the 375 different species of sharks, only about 10 have been known to eat humans. Because sharks have not lived around humans for most of their lineage, sharks have not evolved in a way that allows them to digest human flesh. Sharks eating humans is similar to a lactose intolerant person eating ice cream. It’s possible, but sharks choose to ignore humans for their own good. Sperm and Killer Whales are much more capable of eating a human than a shark is.

If you look at the behavior of sharks, most sharks approach a human out of sheer curiosity. This curiosity leads to a terrified human, which leads to a terrified shark, which leads to a shark attack. A shark most often will bite a human out of self-defense, not because it is hungry for a human thigh. And, occasionally, a shark mistakes a human for a sea turtle or a seal.

We shouldn’t be scared of sharks; we should be helping them. The shark population has dropped dramatically in the past few years, and this isn’t just bad for the sharks; this affects the whole ecosystem. With the sharks gone, the whole aquatic ecosystem is thrown off. There are no sharks to eat the mesopredators, which are next in the food chain. And, because there is an increase in mesopredators (for example, stingrays), the amount of smaller fish decrease. If we were to stop fearing sharks and stop fishing them for their meats and their fins, the ecosystem would be balanced.

Editor: Luke Langlois