Sharks are the monsters?

(I took this picture on a dive in the Bahamas)

Peter Benchley the author of Jaws recently passed away. He made his fortune by demonizing the shark and spent the rest of his life preaching conservation of the ocean's top predators. Benchley recognized what amazing creatures sharks are and that if man screws with the top of the food chain we're asking for trouble. Some others such as Vic Hislop, an Australian "Shark Hunter," never have come around.

Here are the facts:

Each year 100 million sharks are killed by humans. We hack off their fins, essential for swimming, and throw their wriggling, bloody torsos back into the water to die slowly, all for a nice bowl of shark fin soup. According to Julia Brown of Halifax University, worldwide shark populations are falling at an alarming rate. In the past 50 years there has been a 61% decrease in the population of large species. The population of white tip sharks, once thought to be the most abundant large animal on earth, has decreased by an alarming 99%.

And some still think that sharks are the monsters.