Throughout humankind’s decades of industrial exploitation, we have expelled a vast amount of pollutants into the environment. These pollutants travel around the world on air and water currents they become part of the food chain as they get absorbed by all plants and animals, ever increasing in toxicity as small fish eats plants, bigger fish eats smaller fish, and finally end up in the top predators, such as sharks, marlin and large tuna. A shark will contain all the toxic pollutants from all the fish it has eaten over its lifetime!
For more information, read “Mercury in Sharks” factsheet.
Another threat to sharks is the loss of habitat. Many sharks and rays depend on estuaries as nurseries for their young. Estuaries around the world are often prime real estate, and are disappearing to make way for development.