Scientists can identify zebras by their "bar codes"–now they can identify shark fins by zip code. Shark fins are illegally poached by the Chinese in order to make one of their great delicacies: shark fin soup. Tens of millions of animals are killed every year to produce this: 73 million sharks are killed by people every year, while sharks kill 4-5 people a year.
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Shark attacks are on the rise in Australia?and some people think the country’s attempts to protect sharks are to blame.
It might also be because more people are going swimming. In Time Magazine, Rory Callinan quotes researcher Rory McAuley as saying, “?People are getting into the water over a greater area of the shark’s range. It’s probably likely to expect to see an increase in shark sightings and attacks.”
But some fisherman say the government’s new policy of making them throw man-eaters back into the water are to blame. Callinan quotes fisherman Vic Hislop as saying, “Sharks do hang around after the attack, and the government has a duty of care to deal with it…[sharks] learn to kill humans. They learn to go in hard and fast.”
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Due to overfishing in the Atlantic Ocean of the food theylike to eat, hungry sharks are coming closer to shore andmay mistake swimmers for a meal. Menhaden fish, a commonshark prey, are at critically low levels, just in time forthe beach vacation season.
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Amanda Onion writes in abcnews.com that swimmers have little reason to worry about being bitten by a shark. George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida, says recent data that suggests people are 15 times more likely to be killed by falling coconuts than by a shark.
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