To the Fisherman and shark finners,

 I hope you are safe during these times due to the covid-19, omicron, and delta cases, I would appreciate your time if you read this letter 

The sharks are dying. The fierce ancient creatures that roamed the earth for over 450 million years (that's before dinosaurs appeared on earth!), something is killing them in the most inhumane ways. What can it be? The thing that is killing one of the most fierce predators in the ocean? Humans are killing them. We can see heartbreaking videos and photos of fishermen cutting shark fins off and throwing them back into the ocean for money. Because of the value of the poor innocent sharks, humans are killing over 100 million sharks each year. We should protect sharks because after they are thrown into the sea without their fins they starve and drown to death because they lost their most important body part, the swimming parts they've lost their life for just money. Many people may believe sharks are dangerous and spooky but in reality, they don't tend to bite humans. There are only 100 shark attacks each year and 10 deaths, and compare that to how many sharks humans kill! 100 to 100,000,000! This means humans kill sharks 1 million times more in a year, which is a huge difference.

The first reason is, sharks need to be protected because without them the world and its biosphere would fail. Animals including humans would be in great danger of survival due to the lack of food. And seafood lovers would be devastated that most of the sea creatures died due to other predators and lack of food. I believe the food chain is very important to the earth's biosphere and is the key to a successful ecosystem. Sharks are in the marine food chain and are the apex predator which is the most important role in the food chain. The apex predator keeps other animal populations maintained, and if humans disturb the apex predator, the marine food chain will fail. Some animals will outnumber others which will cause some species to thrive and some to decrease in population. This will severely damage the coral reefs and will disappear, rays will outnumber and eat all the clams and a lot more negative causes will occur. It won't only affect marine life, it will even affect ecosystems on land too like lack of food for many animals and humans. In many places, the loss of coral reefs would amount to an economic disaster, depriving fishermen of their main source of income, forcing people to find more expensive forms of protein, and undermining the tourism industry. So now do you know why apex predators for example sharks are so important even to us? When I say “apex predator” I don't mean like a ferocious predator that eats everything, I mean an animal that eats other animals to maintain other animals' population. They are basically the maintainers of the food chain. It's easy to think sharks aren't that helpful to us or the ocean but when you look at the facts it will clearly show that sharks are very helpful to the earth and our ecosphere. Moving on to the second reason.

The second reason is, sharks bite when they feel threatened or starving. For example, an article named “Shark fish roaming the sea with a bruise!” showed that a starving shark with a bruised stomach was attacking a person and because the stomach was bruised this meant the shark needed to eat or die. Sharks eat weak or sick animals. This keeps the animal population where they live healthily. If sharks disappeared or become extinct, this would interrupt the food chain and cause trouble throughout the ocean. Sharks don't really mean to bite, they are attracted to splashing because that indicates an injured animal. In the article, it shows that sharks will attack people if they are starving to death. It was a life or death option. 100 million sharks are killed purely for their fins and 100 people are bitten each year,  meaning humans are more dangerous than sharks. Moving on to the last reason.

The last reason is, we should stop people from killing sharks and shark finning because they are becoming endangered, without laws sharks will have a critical chance to go extinct. Shark finning is illegal in Canada. More countries should make shark finning illegal especially U.S.A. and Australia because they kill sharks the most. Presidents should make borders and systems to stop shark finning because we can not let sharks get killed over and over again until they go extinct and miss them. We have to do something right now and not cry about it after sharks go extinct and the earth's biosphere fails and coral reefs decline. In order to combat this issue, you can donate to Team Seas. This is a project to take out garbage from the ocean the creators are MrBeast, Mark Rober, and Campaign Director, Matt Fitzgerald. Another way to help speak out when you see abuse, talk to your local educators, write your legislators, reduce, reuse, recycle, seafood consumption, and don't use shark products because this can lead to the creators of the product thinking customers like it and demanding more sharks. Doing this will benefit the entire world to have a better economy and ecosphere where there is a natural balance of population in the oceanic creatures.

Sharks have more fear of humans than humans fear of sharks because every single shark may get swooped out of their homes and lose its fins forever. Or get taken and lose their fins and drown at the bottom of the sea until they die. 100 million sharks are killed each year and every single shark can be one of the 100 million (100 million isn’t a small number here it is in digit form: 100,000,000). Imagine that happening to humans. We need to stop shark finning because sharks eat groupers, groupers eat coral reefs and without coral reefs, it will have a huge negative impact on the earth's ecosystem. I speak out loud for the sharks. Humans are greedy and always want more  “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not every man's greed”~Mahatma Gandhi. Coral reefs protect coastlines from storms and erosion, provide jobs for local communities, and offer recreation opportunities. They are also a source of food and new medicines. But sharks eat the groupers to help the corals that benefit the world including humans. But if humans keep on killing sharks, there will be a sky-high population of groupers and a very low amount of coral reefs left in the ocean. If the coral reefs die, coastlines become more susceptible to damage and flooding from storms, hurricanes, and cyclones. Without the coral reefs, the ocean will not be able to absorb as much carbon dioxide, leaving more CO2 in the atmosphere leading to global warming that affects places in the world to be not as positive and healthy as before.

 In conclusion, Sharks should be protected and safe from any shark finning or other dangers for sharks. I don't see why governments are not banning shark finning because sharks have a huge positive impact on every country so for the country they can ban shark finning or the country will lose animals for example oysters, turtles, and much more. In light of this information, it is clear that sharks are very important to us and the ecosystem due to their role in marine life, apex predators. To wrap up sharks should be protected at all costs. There are multiple reasons why. As I mentioned above sharks eat groupers that eat coral reefs and coral reefs are very important to us humans, we use coral reefs for new medicine which saves lives so without sharks humans would die and the human's population will decrease too. This shows that sharks are very important to the earth's ecosystem and even to us. But sharks are endangered, But we must prevent this so why don't you start helping out by choosing some of the options above. If sharks are endangered we can't just stand there and watch them go extinct when we are the ones that made them endangered. We have to try our best and help them out like they helped us in the world by being the apex predator for us and taking care of populations of various species in marine life. Thank you for taking your time to read this letter and once again, I hope you stay safe.

Best regards,

Brandon Yoo