Read shark researcher Mark Marks' responses on the following shark topics:
Disappearing sharks
Shark evolution
Shark deterrent?
Nonstop swimmers?
Shark posturing
Swimming with the sharks?
Shark diving
Shark education
Shark enemies
Shark reproduction
Great white disposition
Favorite shark
Shark eyes
Shark companions
Bite pressure
Bladderless sharks
Warmblooded killers
Hammerheads
Thresher sharks
Great whites in captivity
Shark protection
Q: On Shark Protection
Dear Mark,
My name is Halley and I live in Anchorage, Alaska. I have had a love and interest in sharks since I was young girl. My mom was a science teacher, and I will never forget the first time I touched a shark in her classroom. I remember being excited at seeing the female shark with babies inside her body, but also sad that they were all dead. My mom reminded me that we were there to learn and understand more about sharks. I read that in August of 1997, California Governor Pete Wilson signed a bill to give permanent protection to great white sharks in California waters — a marine-conservation success made possible by 27 years of research from the Farallon Islands on this remarkable species.
1.) How can I/we make this protection permanent world wide for great white sharks?
2.) How do we encourage all countries to prepare and implement plans for the conservation and management of sharks and make all countries ban the wasteful and destructive practice of shark finning in local and international waters?
Sincerely,
Hall
Getting any species protected globally is often an uphill struggle, especially when just proving an animal is a threatened species, much less an endangered one, can be an equally frustrating endeavor. For example, the white shark was first given protected status anywhere on April 11, 1991, in South Africa, greatly due to the efforts of my professor and colleague Dr. L.J.V. Compagno and Nan Rice of the Dolphin Action and Protection Group. In fact, my organization, the Shark Protection and Preservation Association, the Center for Marine Conservation, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and the Point Reyes Bird Observatory in California were instrumental in getting our local California assembly member, Dan Hauser (D), to sponsor a bill to protect white sharks in the California state legislature in 1993. On Oct. 11, 1994, California Governor Pete Wilson signed the bill, making California the first U.S. state to protect white sharks from commercial and sport fishing. As for global protection, what is needed is to get the white shark listed on the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species list for a worldwide ban in the trading of white shark parts. White-shark-catch categories on the international game angling record list should also be closed, to eliminate the status of the white shark as the "ultimate sports fish."
