Word: sharked
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That prospect spurred the U.S. government for the first time to slash fishing quotas for certain sharks in Atlantic waters in April. It also moved conservationists to put seven shark species on the IUCN-World Conservation Union's Red List of threatened species and prompted calls for even stricter safeguards for sharks before it's too late...
...should anyone care? In fact, there are plenty of reasons, starting with the creature's pure elegance of design. Sharks first appeared on earth 400 million years ago, and after about 200 million years of evolutionary trial and error, nature pretty much ran out of ways to improve on its handiwork. Today more than 350 species swim the planet, ranging in size from the less-than-1-ft.-long dwarf shark and pygmy ribbontail catfish shark to the 50-ft. whale shark. Sharks have insinuated themselves into every marine environment from the Arctic to the tropics. One species, the bull...
Beyond that, sharks have immense practical value. While shark cartilage does not, despite the claims, prevent cancer, it has been used to make artificial skin for burn victims. Shark corneas have been used experimentally for human transplants. Shark blood contains anticlotting agents. Shark-liver oil seems to aid white-blood-cell production; it is also an active ingredient in, of all things, Preparation...
...Sharks were the first creatures in evolutionary history to develop an immune system. Biomedical researchers believe that if we can figure out how theirs works we'll gain valuable insights into our own. A shark could someday save your life--if it isn't already extinct...
When an apex predator is removed from the food chain, this carefully balanced machine tends to go haywire. Without wolves and mountain lions to keep them in check, for example, some deer populations in the U.S. have skyrocketed. And in just the same way, experts believe, overfishing of sharks off Australia and Tasmania years ago led to an explosion in the octopus population and a subsequent decline of the spiny-lobster fishery. Declining numbers of hammerhead sharks off the Florida panhandle may have allowed stingrays to reach record numbers there. "It's impossible to predict the implications of removing sharks...