Sharks: A Bad Image, but Oceans Value Them, Part 2

VOICE TWO: Some divers, filmmakers and nature photographers enter a shark's territory while inside containers made of steel. Others wear heavy metal equipment for protection. And others get near sharks wearing only normal diving equipment. Close contact with sharks has its critics. Some people say it represents invasion of the animals' territory for no good reason. But exciting films may increase public interest and sympathy for the animals. VOICE ONE: Many people wanting to save sharks have formed activist groups. For example, a group called Shark Safe helped prevent the killing of sharks at a fishing competition in Florida earlier this month. Event organizers had said the goal would be to catch and release sharks. But the Shark Safe Project said the stated goal of "bringing in the big one" would lead to killing of the biggest sharks. The big ones are the most likely to reproduce. The Shark Safe Project planned a demonstration against the competition. The demonstration never took place, however. Instead, the event organizers changed their plans. Participants were to catch the sharks as expected. But all sharks were to be released. VOICE TWO: The Shark-Free Marinas Initiative is a campaign aimed at helping sharks worldwide. Under the Initiative, people could not bring a killed shark to a participating marina. People transporting captured sharks to the boat landing for weighing and killing would also be rejected. The initiative cooperates with several other programs, including the Cape Eleuthera Institute in the Bahamas islands. The Institute is an educational center that also operates a shark research program. VOICE ONE: In late two thousand seven, a United Nations conference reported that one kind of shark, the basking shark, is in danger of dying out. The numbers of basking sharks have been decreasing for the past half-century. The animals are the second largest shark, after whale sharks. They swim with their mouths open, cleaning the water as they move. They take up and eat objects like fish eggs and tiny sea organisms. Scientists want to know how and where basking sharks travel. Recently, experts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean were interested in a huge basking shark discovered in eastern Canada. The remains of the eight-meter long animal were found on a rocky beach in Saint John, New Brunswick. Experts said the cause of death is unknown. VOICE TWO: Donald McAlpine heads the zoology collection at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John. He said scientists removed the head and some backbones from the shark for examination. Mister McAlpine said pictures of the animal were sent to scientists in Britain. The British scientists had requested the pictures to learn if the shark was the same fish they had observed on their side of the Atlantic. Sharks can be identified by their individual markings and sometimes by healed wounds. VOICE ONE: For years, the travels of basking sharks have been a mystery to scientists. Basking sharks from the northeastern United States are not seen in the winter. They seem to disappear from cool waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Yet studies published in the journal Current Biology are providing clues about the mystery. The studies found that the sharks went to warmer waters of the Atlantic during the winter. The animals did a good job of staying hidden from sight. They swam in waters from two hundred to one thousand meters deep. Like Americans living in cold climates, some of the sharks traveled to Florida for the winter. Others went even further south. One spent a month in waters near Brazil. One of the investigators was Gregory Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. He says the fish probably get to eat more plankton in the warmer waters. VOICE TWO: Today, a major threat to sharks comes from shark fin soup. The popularity of the soup has increased greatly over the years. Fisheries can earn a lot of money for even one kilogram of shark fins. Finning, as it is called, is big business. It means cutting the fins off a live shark. Fishermen cut off the shark's fins and throw the animal back into the water. The shark then bleeds to death on the bottom of the ocean. Many animal-protection groups and people worldwide have denounced finning as cruel. Some areas have banned this activity. But it is hard to enforce the ban in many places. VOICE ONE: Ann Luskey is an activist for the world's sea environment. She lives on a boat and often dives to watch underwater life. Her three children took part in an unusual recording project. The family hopes the music will attract attention to the need for taking good care of the earth and its seas. One of the recordings is a hip-hop song called "Shark Fin Soup." It urges people not to eat the soup because it threatens sharks. VOICE TWO: This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jerilyn Watson. Brianna Blake was our producer. I'm Faith Lapidus. VOICE ONE: And I'm Bob Doughty. Listen again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America. Source: Voice of America