Shark Diving

Rob Stewart Swimming with Caribbean reef Sharks


Sharks, believe it or not, are the most mysterious and amazing animals. They have been on earth for more than 400 million years, 150 million years before dinosaurs when life had just begun, and there was only 1 or 2 continents. They have survived through 5 mayor extinctions, including dinosaur´s, and they are still here, mostly unchanged.

Life on earth evolved from the oceans. Sharks were one of the first animals on the planet. But the very first animals were tiny micro-organisms that created plankton and coral. Invertebrates followed including squids and mollusks. And finally, one of the first vertebrates with jaws appeared, the Sharks.

Other species have been shaped by their predators, the sharks, giving rise to schooling behavior, speed, size and communication. Sharks control most of the animals on the oceans and without them there wouldn´t be many life here on earth. They have eliminate species and created new ones. Today there are around 450 species of Sharks in all the seas and oceans of the planet.

But they are not our enemies...they are nothing like what we are told about them. Sharks are perfect predators that hold the seas and oceans in balance. They are essential to the marine ecosystem. The truth is sharks are not and can’t dangerous. Most people that doesn´t know about them are afraid of things that they don´t really understand. Other animals like snakes, elephants and even car accidents kill more people than sharks do.

Sharks very rarely bite a person and according to the statistics sharks kill between 5 to 10 people each year and the maximum is 100 persons which rarely happens, even in the rare case when a shark bites a human, the person dies of blood loss, not because it eat the person. When a shark bites, its for curiosity, accident or simply case of mistaken identity.
Sometimes, as we try things with hands, they try new stuff with their mouth, so they don't really know what we are, and the sometimes come and try us to figure out what we are.

We kill more than 100 million sharks each year for their fins and money and because we don´t care about them we don´t think of the consequences.
Unfortunatly these days shark population has been decreased nearly 90% from its original number due to shark finning. The fact is sharks are not the lethal killers we think they are, they don´t eat people. Sharks are one of the most important animals on earth and if we kill them all everything would change, the marine ecosystem would change completely and the worst part is that most of the oxygen we need to breath comes from the oceans. Without sharks there are no oceans .. and without oceans there will be no life... including us.

If we want to live we must protect and keep sharks where they meant to be, and that’s in the oceans.