The ISSUE
The ISSUE
The ISSUE
In recent years, sharks have been painted out to be ferocious killers . The media is purely responsible for popularising the resent towards sharks. Popular films such as ‘Jaws’ and ‘The Shallows’ paint sharks out to be dangerous, life threatening animals, when in reality they’re far from it.
The reality
The reality
The statistics say that your chance of being fatally attacked by a shark are 1 in 3.7million. You are more likely to be killed by a coconut to head or a lightning strike. In fact, you are more likely to be killed due to an asteroid than to be killed by a shark. The reason why people are so afraid of sharks is purely due to the way the media represents them. The media encourages people to be afraid of these animals, suggesting to “control” and “sedate” these creatures. The creation of 'Jaws' specifically sparked a turning point in terms of the fear for sharks. People now not only fear the dangerous sharks, but also the harmless ones too.
Our mission is to educate people on the true nature of these majestic animals, but more on that later.
The ISSue with shark nets
The ISSue with shark nets
The fear stirred up by the media has caused implications of shark nets all around Australia, especially in NSW. These nets are very effective at catching wildlife, however, not so effective in catching the targeted species. They catch more untargeted animals than the targeted animals themselves! And guess what? They are also great at catching humans too! That’s right. Last year, two people drowned due to being tangled in shark nets. The irony is that these things are causing more fatalities than the sharks themselves!
People have the right to feel safe, and the implications of shark nets have seemed to make us feel more protected, however, have you ever considered how this affects their environment?
The nets have been responsible for the death of over 33,000 animals in the past 30 years, 12% of which being the targeted species. This means that 25,000 harmless sharks that did not pose any threats to swimmers were killed due to these shark nets.
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The chart on the right shows what animals have been caught in shark nets in the past 30 years, in NSW alone. Hammerheads and Stingrays, which are untargeted species, were at the top of the list, proving how ineffective and detrimental these shark nets are. They are not completing the task they were set, but instead doing the opposite.
The EFFECT
The EFFECT
Sharks are an important aspect to the ocean’s ecosystem and without them, coral reefs would cease to exist and marine species would face extinction. This can cause a disruption in the food chain which can ultimately end up affecting us humans.