To save the sharks, mind what’s on your dinner plate

Last week, I had the unique opportunity to go on a shark tagging trip to Miami, Florida’s Biscayne Bay with researchers from Minorities in Shark Sciences and Field School. I’ve encountered sharks in the wild while snorkeling and I see them every day in the aquarium at Miami’s Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science, but there is something extra-special about meeting these magnificent animals up close.

Watching the researchers interact so respectfully with the sharks was an unforgettable experience. Each time the team released a shark back into the ocean after collecting the data they needed, I felt a surge of joy to experience these important (and exciting!) research and conservation efforts.

My positive emotions about sharks might run counter to your feelings about these animals. Fueled by films like Jaws, dramatic Shark Week programming, and a spate of recent movies about the prehistoric megalodon, many people are afraid of sharks. But, as cliché as it sounds, sharks have much more to fear from us than we do from them.

In fact, of the billions of people on Earth, just nine people died of shark bites globally in 2022. In contrast, a study from 2013 estimated that humans kill about 100 million sharks each year through commercial fishing. That’s a massive difference.

Sharks are fished for their fins, meat, and even the oil in their livers. Others are hooked by fishing lines not meant for them and die as bycatch. Still others are caught as trophies by sport hunters. Overfishing is pushing almost 400 shark and ray species – one of every three known to science – toward extinction.

What can you do

If you live in Miami, visit the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science to see our special exhibition Sharks, on view through April 21, 2024. The exhibition is filled with information about shark science. It also highlights the importance of sharks to people in Australia and the Pacific Islands, and provides a great explanation of why we should not fear sharks.

The good news is that even if you don’t live near Miami or even the ocean, there are three important things you can do to protect sharks. The first is to contact your state and national representatives and ask them to support science-informed fisheries and ocean conservation policies. If they know their constituents care about sharks, they are more likely to act.

The second thing you can do is to learn about where your seafood comes from and how it is caught. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program is an excellent resource to get started. The use of longlines to catch fish is particularly dangerous for sharks, so try to avoid fish caught with this method.

Another thing about seafood is to be aware that fish for sale are sometimes wrongly or misleadingly labeled. Fish labeled flake, whitefish, rock salmon, cazón, and even imitation crab might actually be shark meat. Don’t buy it!

Third, check your supplements, lotions, and other cosmetics for an ingredient called squalene and find out where those companies get it from. Squalene is an oil that can be harvested from sharks’ livers. It can also be extracted from plants like olives, which is a much better alternative.

Being a careful consumer can save sharks’ lives. While large-scale change (especially in the fishing industry) is also needed to ensure the long-term safety of the hundreds of shark species found in our oceans, your choices can help make a difference.