US Politics | How Shark Week, Jaws and SOUP almost made the great white extinct – and truth behind how many of the predators are left
HUMANS hunted the ocean's apex predator for decades and nearly wiped great white sharks off the planet for soup and sport, according to experts. Despite conservation efforts, the world's great white shark population is down to about 3,500, which is significantly higher than the near-extinction numbers in the 1970s and '80s. 
OCEARCH is a leading nonprofit group that's been tagging and studying sharks and promoting conservation effortsOcearch / Chris Ross 
JAWS prompted an obsession with sharksUNIVERSAL 
The movie created a false image of great white sharks, which were nearly wiped out by humans in the 1970s and 1980sOcearch / Chris Ross Not coincidentally, the classic movie Jaws was released in 1976, which began the public's fascination and obsession with sharks \- mainly the great white \- expert Chris Fischer told The Sun ...After Jaws, everyone went out and was trying to catch or kill every shark they could,... said Fischer, who founded the nonprofit research group OCEARCH. Around the same time, the demand for shark fin soup skyrocketed and about 100million sharks were being slaughtered each year, said Fischer. Fishermen captured sharks, cut off their fins and dumped their bodies back in the water, which stopped their ability to swim. SHARK STORIES 
TERROR WEEK Event continues with Jaws vs the Blob TONIGHT - see what's on the schedule ...It's such a waste. It's like cutting a bird's wings off and sending it back out in the wild,... he said. Sharks were on the verge of extinction about 50 years ago The global abundance of sharks dropped 71 percent since 1970, according to a 2021 study in the scientific journal Nature. The decline was as high as 90 percent in extreme cases, according to OCEARCH's Chief Scientist Dr Bob Hueter. Most read in The US Sun 'SHE NEVER MADE IT' Mom found dead floating in trash can after 'someone put a hit on her' GOING YE BACK? Kris Jenner drops MAJOR HINT Kim is back with Kanye during outing with Khloe END TIMES Creepy DALL-E mini AI asked to predict last selfie taken and it's horrifying CAN'T HAND-LE IT Kardashian critics think Kim & Khloe look like 'CORPSES' in unedited pics BLOOD IN THE WATER Trainer screamed 'I don't want to die' as she was ripped apart by whales LONG GOODBYE I'm 5ft 2ins & tried Kim Kardashian's SKIMS dress – some told me to return it ...When you're catching all these sharks and killing them, you cut off the reproductive cycle and the population collapses,... Fischer said. ...That's what happened with our white sharks. ...And they take somewhere around 20 years before they're sexually mature and can mate and reproduce.... SHARK WEEK IS THE MODERN-DAY JAWS Shark obsession continued with the advent of Shark Week, an annual summer TV event that's been running for more than three decades and seems to become more popular each year. But some experts have criticized the series as a harmful attack on sharks. Dr Lisa Whitenack, associate professor of biology and geology at Allegheny College, was the lead author of a study released in 2021 that outlined the negative effects Shark Week has. ...The public's perception of sharks, shark science and shark scientists is heavily influenced by Shark Week,... she said in a statement. ...Unfortunately, we found that Shark Week programming focuses on negative portrayals of sharks and does not often accurately portray shark research nor the diversity of expertise in the field. ...While critics have been saying this for some time, we now have the numbers to back it up.... THE US BILL TO PROTECT SHARKS The US has banned the practice of shark finning in US waters, but there's no federal ban on the removal and sale of shark fins once the fin is brought ashore. A federal bill \- dubbed the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act of 2021 \- that will soon be in front of both houses of Congress to close the loophole. ...Shark finning is the cruel practice in which the fins of a shark are cut off on board a fishing vessel at sea. The remainder of the animal is then thrown back into the water to drown, starve, or die a slow death,... the bill says. ...It is estimated that fins from as many as 73million sharks end up in the global shark fin trade every year. ...It is difficult to determine which species of shark a fin was removed from, which is problematic because some species are threatened with extinction.... Read More on The US Sun 
IN A TAIL-FIN How Shark Week, Jaws and SOUP almost made the great white extinct 
NO JOY The View's Joy YELLS at crew member to 'hurry up' during off-air Q&A with audience The bill would have to be approved by the Senate and House before it goes to the president's desk for a signature. Until that happens, the loophole continues to threaten the shark population.
OCEARCH is a leading nonprofit group that's been tagging and studying sharks and promoting conservation effortsOcearch / Chris Ross JAWS prompted an obsession with sharksUNIVERSAL The movie created a false image of great white sharks, which were nearly wiped out by humans in the 1970s and 1980sOcearch / Chris Ross Not coincidentally, the classic movie Jaws was released in 1976, which began the public's fascination and obsession with sharks \- mainly the great white \- expert Chris Fischer told The Sun ...After Jaws, everyone went out and was trying to catch or kill every shark they could,... said Fischer, who founded the nonprofit research group OCEARCH. Around the same time, the demand for shark fin soup skyrocketed and about 100million sharks were being slaughtered each year, said Fischer. Fishermen captured sharks, cut off their fins and dumped their bodies back in the water, which stopped their ability to swim. SHARK STORIES TERROR WEEK Event continues with Jaws vs the Blob TONIGHT - see what's on the schedule ...It's such a waste. It's like cutting a bird's wings off and sending it back out in the wild,... he said. Sharks were on the verge of extinction about 50 years ago The global abundance of sharks dropped 71 percent since 1970, according to a 2021 study in the scientific journal Nature. The decline was as high as 90 percent in extreme cases, according to OCEARCH's Chief Scientist Dr Bob Hueter. Most read in The US Sun 'SHE NEVER MADE IT' Mom found dead floating in trash can after 'someone put a hit on her' GOING YE BACK? Kris Jenner drops MAJOR HINT Kim is back with Kanye during outing with Khloe END TIMES Creepy DALL-E mini AI asked to predict last selfie taken and it's horrifying CAN'T HAND-LE IT Kardashian critics think Kim & Khloe look like 'CORPSES' in unedited pics BLOOD IN THE WATER Trainer screamed 'I don't want to die' as she was ripped apart by whales LONG GOODBYE I'm 5ft 2ins & tried Kim Kardashian's SKIMS dress – some told me to return it ...When you're catching all these sharks and killing them, you cut off the reproductive cycle and the population collapses,... Fischer said. ...That's what happened with our white sharks. ...And they take somewhere around 20 years before they're sexually mature and can mate and reproduce.... SHARK WEEK IS THE MODERN-DAY JAWS Shark obsession continued with the advent of Shark Week, an annual summer TV event that's been running for more than three decades and seems to become more popular each year. But some experts have criticized the series as a harmful attack on sharks. Dr Lisa Whitenack, associate professor of biology and geology at Allegheny College, was the lead author of a study released in 2021 that outlined the negative effects Shark Week has. ...The public's perception of sharks, shark science and shark scientists is heavily influenced by Shark Week,... she said in a statement. ...Unfortunately, we found that Shark Week programming focuses on negative portrayals of sharks and does not often accurately portray shark research nor the diversity of expertise in the field. ...While critics have been saying this for some time, we now have the numbers to back it up.... THE US BILL TO PROTECT SHARKS The US has banned the practice of shark finning in US waters, but there's no federal ban on the removal and sale of shark fins once the fin is brought ashore. A federal bill \- dubbed the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act of 2021 \- that will soon be in front of both houses of Congress to close the loophole. ...Shark finning is the cruel practice in which the fins of a shark are cut off on board a fishing vessel at sea. The remainder of the animal is then thrown back into the water to drown, starve, or die a slow death,... the bill says. ...It is estimated that fins from as many as 73million sharks end up in the global shark fin trade every year. ...It is difficult to determine which species of shark a fin was removed from, which is problematic because some species are threatened with extinction.... Read More on The US Sun IN A TAIL-FIN How Shark Week, Jaws and SOUP almost made the great white extinct NO JOY The View's Joy YELLS at crew member to 'hurry up' during off-air Q&A with audience The bill would have to be approved by the Senate and House before it goes to the president's desk for a signature. Until that happens, the loophole continues to threaten the shark population.
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