The seemingly infinite adaptive diversity of sharks, a circus of evolutionary panache, is a product of 400 million years of evolution, but many species are on the verge of being snuffed out by our own species, a less than perfect product of barely 300 000 years. Sharks currently face a variety of issues, and many species now find themselves on the endangered list. They are feeling the consequences of pollution, climate change, overfishing, illegal shark finning (the practice of removing the fins from a shark’s body and then dumping it back into the sea to drown), culls spurred by the occasional taste of an unwitting surfer mistaken for a seal, and – perhaps the most imposing threat - a general lack of concern, not just for sharks, but the entire marine environment, resulting in the almost irrevocable depletion of their populations.
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