Murray, NEB-The world is huge, and 71% of the world is water! Only about 5% of the oceans are explored, so there are a lot of sea creatures that no one knows about. Today I am going to focus on sharks. There are 400+ species of sharks, more are being discovered every day, but many of these shark species are in danger. Sharks are being hunted for their fins and teeth, you have a better chance of being bit by someone in New York than being bitten by a shark.

Sharks are very unique creatures, some are enormous and some are miniature: for example the Whale Shark is one of the biggest living sharks and they only eat planktonic organisms including krill, jellyfish and crab larvae. Whale sharks are the world’s largest fish and are referred to as the “Gentle Giants.” Even though these sea creatures may look dangerous they’re really not.

July 14th is Shark Awareness Day, a day celebrated to show what good sharks do for our ecosystem. Over 100 million sharks are killed per year by people so as expected shark extinction rates are very high. Sharks are apex predators, if they happened to go extinct then the whole ocean would be out of balance, the fish populations would grow and that would put the coral reefs at risk. The death of coral reefs would affect the food chain because they are being constantly eaten by the herbivorous fish.

Other unique facts about sharks:
They used to be called “Sea Dogs” by sailors
They can be put in a trance when a diver flips them upside down
Sharks were around before trees
Hammerhead sharks use their weirdly shaped head to hunt their favorite food: Stingrays
97% of sharks are completely harmless to humans