Sport Fishermen Target Hammerheads

“Today nearly 40% of shark species are threatened with extinction.” (7) Bethany Hamilton was a 13 year old girl, who loved to surf. She lived in Kauai, Hawaii. Bethany was winning major amateur surf contests by her 10th birthday. One day she was on her surf board, a 15-foot tiger shark was stalking her. The shark then attacked her. Bethany was calm when it happened. The shark took off her whole arm in one bite. Despite the devastating shark attack, Bethany Hamilton showed great resilience in achieving her surfing dream.

Once the cubs are born and the parent hammerhead sharks leave them they huddle and swim together until they are old and large enough to survive on their own.

Hammerheads are usually talked about as if it was just one creature but in a matter of fact the hammerhead shark comes in nine different species. The largest of the species is the Great hammerhead shark, they can range from 3.4m to 6m long and 225kg to 450kg in weight, the females are larger than the males but males mature at an earlier stage, although smaller sizes are more commonly found. The hammerhead sharks habitat is offshore in water depths of 300m, also in shallow coastal areas like continental shelves and lagoons. The hammerhead moves poleward when migrating to get to cooler waters when it is the summer season, which is caused by the abiotic factors. The young swim mostly in shallow waters along the shores almost all over the world

Have you ever been attacked by a shark before? If you haven’t here is a story of a young teen named Bethany Hamilton who got attacked back in October in 2003. Bethany Hamilton was a very smart girl who loved to surf whenever she had a chance. “As Bethany floated happily on her board, a 15 foot long tiger shark, one of the deadliest predators in the ocean was stalking her”. She didn’t see the shark while she was surfing. That’s when she was attacked by the shark. Bethany Hamilton showed great resilience in overcoming the shark attack to achieve her surfing dreams.

b) Sharks try so hard to become unhooked that they end up suffocating themselves. Most of time the long lining is not meant to catch sharks but other species, and so then the Sharks are just thrown back to ocean as a waste. This process is call bycatch.

Over the past 100 years sharks attack numbers, though rare, have been increasing. Ironically two of the most recent attacks have happened this month, which is the 40 year anniversary of the movie Jaws. these two attacks happened at Oak Island in North Carolina. The two attacks were at different times, only by hours, but on the same beach. It’s suspected that either a tiger or bull shark had attacked these two teen girls, but usually great white, lemon, spinner sharks are to blame for human attacks. Attacks this year had also been performed by a nurse and mako shark. Most attacks are categorized as “provoked attacks.” This is like a shark getting a shark bite during spearfishing, shark catching, or even releasing it from a line. Sharks accidentally

Between 1999 and 2004, researchers collected tissue samples from the “fins, muscles, or liver” of scalloped hammerheads. The samples were obtained via fishing or fish markets across multiple ocean basins, including “Pacific: Baja California, Pacific Panama, Hawaii, the Philippines, Taiwan, and eastern Australia; Indian: Thailand, western Australia, Seychelles, and South Africa; Atlantic: Western Africa, Brazil, Atlantic Panama, Gulf of Mexico, and east Coast USA” (K.M. Duncan et al. 2240). It is important to note that the researchers also retrieved samples from juvenile scalloped hammerheads that dwelled in separate feeding areas from the adults where, and this is because there was likely to be overlap between breeding populations within the

A 67-year-old Massachusetts man was the victim of a shark attack in North Carolina on Wednesday. According to witnesses, the man was swimming in the water on Ocracoke Island. He was just outside the first breaker when he encountered a gray shark approximately seven feet long. Hyde County spokeswoman, Sarah Johnson, said that it pulled the man under water. As the man attempted to fight the shark off, he suffered bites to his rib cage, both hands, lower leg and hip. He was conscious and speaking when he was flown to the hospital.

Scientist used to believe that this was a random movement. Science daily Stated in their Article Hammerhead shark migration gives new hope for conservation that (2017) “This study is the first to provide evidence that Great Hammerheads return to particular areas after migrations, rather than perhaps the more common perception of these sharks as "ocean wanderers."” (para 9) These sharks travel From up north Virginia waters to the waters of the Florida Keys. The journey takes about 3 months for the sharks. They move to the warm waters of Florida During the winter months. Then travel to the Cooler waters in Virginia During the

Great hammerhead sharks appear to adapt well to their environments. One of their capabilities is that they are opportunistic predators and are willing to eat anything they can get their hands on to help them survive. Consequently, one concern would be the changes in temperature in the water. The hammerhead does not seem to adapt well to the cooler waters.

The process involves the catching of the shark, and cutting all of its fins off, leaving it completely immobile and vulnerable. After the harvesting of its valuable features, they finally roll the newly disabled shark back into the sea, even though it is often still alive and suffering. As the shark cannot swim or move at all, it only options is to act as bait for other animals or drift to the bottom and drown. The world doesn’t treat other animals in this manner, what makes sharks qualify for this sort of abhorrent abuse?

And when a shark does initiate their defensive state, they do become rather dangerous and an animal which you should definitely be afraid of. For instance, in the movie, “The Shallows” There is a scene when the character Nancy swims her way to the whale carcass and climbs on it. And in a later scene when she is makes her way onto the big rock when it's low tide, quotes that, “he’s got this big old whale over here, but that’s the problem, I swam right up onto his feeding ground.” (YouTube, 23 June 2016. 58:05).

With a body like a torpedo and a mouth like a black hole, it’s nearly impossible to not think about this miraculous predator as you float on the surface of the great blue sea. Even though the great white is virtually the perfect predator, an attack on a human is unlikely and for the attack to be fatal is even more unlikely. Being at the top of the food chain the shark has few threats. Orcas and larger sharks are their only fear. Ironically, human interaction poses the biggest threat to the sharks. They are caught and their fins and jaws are sold.

The human race kills around 73 million sharks a year that's about 140 sharks a minute, To put that into perspective not one person has died from a shark in the United states in 3 years. This act of killing sharks is called shark finning which is the processes where sharks are caught, their fins are cut off, and then they are thrown overboard where they sink to the bottom and die. Why is this done? Sharks are killed for a delicacy called shark fin soup which gets its popularity from the fact that it was once only available to leaders and royalty. There are also many myth surrounding shark fin soup like the fact that many cultures believe it can cure diseases including cancer and there is no evidence to support this.

Starting with the shark’s fins being removed from their body and simply dumped into the ocean to die, the shark no less much likely in excruciating pain the entire time. This way is widely used as the shark fin is the part that can be sold for a high profit than any other part of the shark, in fact any other part of the shark is worthless to any fisher (Clarke, Miler-Gulland, & Bjorndal, 2007) to which is why most if not all sharks are immediately dumped overboard once their fins are extracted as this also frees up extra space on any fishermen’s vessel to store more shark fins before returning to harbor. However, this profitable practice is both mental and physical abuse to sharks; imagine being in excruciating pain and anguish as you are held against your will while having all you limb being cut off then literally just left for you dead until you bleed out eventually die a slow dead, this is exactly what sharked who are being finned experience. This is by far one of the most inhumane, unethical, and pointless way to make a couple more bucks in the fishing