(This is a report my oldest son wrote for the 2014-2015 school year.)
Sharks:
Helpful Hunters or Mindless Eaters?
by Stephen Moore
A hungry shark hones in on its
latest victim. The victim swims away,
but it is too late. The shark consumes
a... fish. Some people would have ended
that sentence with the word surfer or swimmer, but that is rarely the
case. Sharks, though curious, are
actually fascinating creatures and rarely harmful to humans, even though they
seem scary.
So,
if sharks are not to be feared, what are they?
Sharks are fish. To be more
exact, sharks are cartilaginous fish, which means they have a skeleton made out
of cartilage. Sharks also have gills on
the sides of their heads that they breathe with just like other fish. Most sharks have tough skin that is a dull
gray color, though some are more colorful, making them more like their fish
counterparts. Another important thing to
note, that makes them different than most fish, is that sharks have no swim
bladder, so they must keep swimming or they will sink. (Carrier, 1) It is easy to tell that sharks are basically
fish, just by their physical appearance.
Sharks
have some unique traits, though. Unlike
other species of fish that eat things like plankton and smaller fish, most
sharks eat fish, squid, octopuses, shellfish, and smaller sharks. Larger sharks, such as the whale shark and
basking shark, are toothless sea creatures that eat only plankton and are
completely harmless to other creatures. (Carrier, 1) Sharks live mainly in saltwater, and in every
ocean of the world. While some sharks live in shallow water, others live in
very, very deep water. (Savage, 12)
Sharks' traits are varied and fascinating.
Sharks
can actually be helpful, too. Some
sharks are both hunters and scavengers. They eat dead ocean creatures such as
fish, sharks, sea lions, etc. Some
sharks, such as the tiger shark, even eat garbage! (Sharks, 123) Sharks have an
important role in the ocean's ecosystem. Without sharks, there would be too
many other sea creatures in the ocean, and disease could make those creatures
go extinct. Sharks can be helpful by keeping the ecosystem balanced.
So,
why do sharks attack humans when sharks have so many other things available to
them to eat in the ocean? Most people think
sharks attack because they are mindless eating machines that consume everything
in sight, including humans. The truth
is, sharks do not even like humans, not even their taste! Most of the time, when a shark sees and
attacks a human, the shark does so because it thinks the human is something the
shark finds good to eat, such as a seal or sea turtle. Most attacks of this kind are on surfers,
because the board looks like a shark's prey and not a piece of wood that
someone is riding on. This is one of the
main reasons sharks attack.
Another
reason sharks attack is because of a habit some sharks (such as the great
white) are known to have called "bite and spit." (Savage, 27) When the shark sees something that looks like
it might be good to eat, it takes a bite, and waits for the taste to fill its
mouth. If the potential food tastes good, the shark will finish eating its
prey. If it does not, the shark will
spit out the flesh and find something else to eat. (Savage, 27) This is why sharks usually only bite a person
once when they attack. They do not like
the taste of people at all.
Though
many people fear sharks, sharks should and probably do fear humans! For every human killed by a shark, humans
kill two million sharks by fishing,
finning or for no reason at all other than fear. That is a ratio of 1 to 2,000,000! ("Shark
Attack Facts") If people really thought about it, they would see
that sharks are not the dangerous ones. People are the hazardous ones to sharks.
Sharks
are curious creatures that are very interesting, even though they seem
terrifying. Sharks are cartilaginous
fish with unique traits, such as having no swim bladders, keeping the ocean ecosystem balanced and using the "bite and
spit" technique. Some sharks can
even be helpful to the environment by eating garbage. Given these facts, what would the world be
like without sharks?
Works
Cited
Carrier,
Jeffrey. "shark". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia
Britannica, Inc., 2015.
Savage,
Stephen. Face to Face: Sharks. New
York: Tangerine Press, 2009. Print.
"Shark
Attack Facts." National Geographic
Online. National Geographic Society, 2015. Web.
Stevens,
John D. Sharks. New York: Facts on
File, Inc., 1987. Print.
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