Sharks are our and Ocean's Future
SHARKS ARE OUR AND OCEAN'S FUTURE
SHARKS PHOTOGRAPHY TO HELP THEM
Sharks are necessary to the health of our planet. They have been like that for millions of years, playing a vital role in the oceans’ food web, keeping our ecosystem healthy and biodiverse.
As apex predators, they play an important role at the top of the marine food chain. Removing these top predators creates an imbalance called a trophic cascade leading to less abundance and declining the ecosystem’s health.
For example, by taking sharks out of the coral reef ecosystem, the larger predatory non-shark fish, such as groupers, increase in abundance and feed on the herbivores. With less herbivores, macroalgae expands and coral can no longer compete, shifting the ecosystem to one of algae dominance, affecting the survival of the reef system.
So, without them, the entire food chain can be affected, negatively impacting the entire ecosystem, including fish humans love to eat.
In addition to marine life, the killings of these sharks are also affecting the tourism industry that is making more and more millions in revenue.
And this influence in the economy is thus supporting Eco-tourism and Funding for Ecosystems. Less Shark would reveal so as a loss in the overall economy for many countries.
The main reasons of the sharks’ decline are essentially the fin trade, the fishing for their meat and,especially, the bycatch in unregulated fisheries, often through the use of destructive and indiscriminate non-shark fishing methods such as longlines, gillnets, and trawls.
There are many way to protect them and I believe that photography once again might play an important “abstract” role. Showing their beauty, their behaviour and fragility and thus removing the idea of them as human-killers and horror of the seas or, even worse, expensive, very prestigious and even propitious food.
With no sharks the Ocean has no future. With no Ocean, the humanity has no future neither.
Daniele Comin, Italy, Treviso
