What can people do to help sharks?


By Blaise Jones

How can a single individual have any effect on something as huge as the ocean? The answer is: in many ways!

The small things people do to help reduce our combined impact on our natural ecosystems all add up together to help preserve sharks and their habitats.

The best first step is educating yourself on the issues. What are the major concerns facing our oceans today? What’s causing them? What can you do to mitigate your impact?

Some of the big issues facing our oceans, and sharks, include:

  • Overfishing
  • Irresponsible aquaculture
  • Ghost nets
  • Garbage, especially plastic pollution
  • Ocean acidification
  • Dead zones
  • Mercury pollution
  • Offshore drilling
  • Whaling
  • Shark finning
  • Ocean warming
  • Habitat destruction

Each of these topics is explained extensively on this site and we welcome you to take your time reading, listening and watching more about each topic.

“R” you Paying Attention?

After education comes action and there are many actions each of us can take to reduce our combined impact on the environment. The key is to follow the three “R”s of conservation:

  • Reduce
  • Reuse
  • Recycle

Reduce your behaviors that negatively affect the environment. Reduce the amount of disposable plastics you use, the amount of electricity you use, and the amount of waste you toss out. Carry a water bottle with you instead of buying bottled water. Instead of plastic bags at the grocery story, use reusable shopping bags or ask for paper bags. Ask for no straw next time you go to a restaurant. Just think of all the little things you always end up tossing out: do you need to them?

Reuse as much as you can! Reuse food scraps for new recipes or as compost for your gardens. Reuse plastic containers instead of tossing them out. This website has a host of ideas on how to reuse things you’d normally toss out without a second thought.

Recycle: have a designated recycling bin in your house and make sure what you are tossing in it can actually be recycled. Certain items cannot be recycled, and others take so much energy to recycle that they actually negatively affect the ecosystem via carbon emission. Here is a website that shows you the various household items you can recycle and which you cannot.

Get active

Advocacy groups need help to help spread the word. Once you have learned how to improve your daily actions to help the environment, consider volunteering for one of your favorite organizations to help them education others about the same topics you were once fuzzy about.

Get active! Get out there! Every little thing you do has an impact, and even if it seems small to you it all adds up.



#sharks #conservation #endangered #recycle #TSF