Sharks are monsters, right? They kill hundreds of people a year, right? They are mindless man eaters out for human flesh and blood… right? Wrong!

It has been a leading misconception that sharks are veracious, mindless, man-eating monsters since 1975, the year Jaws (the movie) came to theaters. There was such little information about sharks back in 1975 that people thought Jaws to be nonfiction. In reality, the movie is near total and complete fiction! For example, sharks do not grow to be forty feet long and sharks do not favor human flesh. Further, sharks are not mindless sea monsters humans need to fear.

Here are the facts. There are more than 500 species of sharks ranging from one foot to twenty feet in length, with an estimated one billion sharks in all the oceans. In reality only about a dozen species are dangerous to humans. These so-called man-eating creatures only attack an average of seventy-five people a year. Worldwide! And out of these seventy-five unfortunate ocean goers, only an average of one dozen people are killed. These are the facts against the sharks, which in a world with one billion sharks and seven billion people, the odds are pretty remote that someone will get attacked. Now let’s go over the facts I like to call ‘the kickers’.

Humans kill an average of 100 million sharks per year! This number has ranged from 63 million all the way up to 273 million. That’s 11,415 sharks killed every hour! That’s more sharks dead in one minute than humans attacked by sharks in an entire year! 73% of these ‘man-eaters’ each year are killed purely for their fins, which go into shark fin soup – a popular dish in Asian cuisine. Fishermen cut the shark’s fins off and throw the rest of the body (often still alive) into the ocean to die. In my opinion, bowls of soup are not worth the requisite mass shark kills.

So the facts are out. These ‘monsters’ are the victims. Every day humans are going out into the ocean, killing sharks in their natural environment and butchering them with little remorse. We are the ones invading their home.

Being raised on the coast of California and passionate about animals to begin with, I came to understand sharks better than ‘the average Joe’. I knew I was risking my life every time I put a foot in the Pacific Ocean, but I still did. I ventured into the ocean dozens of times because I knew the percentage of being attacked by a shark was very, very low, and being killed by a shark even lower. I thought, why worry? Plus, I respected the fact that I was going into the environment where they live, breed and eat, and if I got in the way of that, well, that’s my own fault.

I am an avid shark enthusiast and have great passion for protecting them. If humans don’t change their ways, we will have been the cause of one of the most prolific animal exterminations in history, far more so than of the North American buffalo (bison) in the late 1800s.

Sharks are the top predator in 326 quadrillion gallons that make up all our oceans, and if they are gone, every single gallon of the oceans will be out of balance. Sharks are integral to regulating the food web of the ocean. For example, sharks hunt the old, sick, and slower fish and thus keep the overall population of key species of fish healthy. For this reason, the prospect of the food chain minus its apex predator may lead to unintended consequences for many species.

So, all in all, sharks are not as bad as they seem. It’s the humans with the problem. Sharks are just misunderstood creatures headed to the verge of extinction.

Now let’s review the facts. Sharks kill on average one dozen people per year. Humans kill an average of 100 million sharks per year. 73% of those sharks are butchered purely for their fins. So far, little is being done to stop it.

Now the facts and ‘the kicker’ are out. Sharks are not the monsters… we are! There is no doubt that the human species is the biggest monster in the ocean.

One more fact. By the time you finish reading this article hundreds of sharks will have been drowned in nets, illegally fished, and butchered for their fins by the real monsters.