# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Few creatures strike more fear in humans than the great white shark. In reality, great white shark attacks on humans are rare - and it is even rarer for one of these attacks to be fatal. However, the size of the great white shark and its efficiency as a predator add to the perpetuation of this unnecessary fear.

The great white shark averages 4.5 m (15 ft.) in length, but some have been recorded as large as 6 m (20 ft.) long! They generally weigh up to 2250 kg (5000 lb.).

Great white sharks are blue-gray on the dorsal, or top, part of their bodies. This helps them blend in with the bottom of the ocean when viewed from above. The belly, or ventral, part of the body, is white. This makes it difficult to see the sharks from below, with sunlight shining in around them. They have strong, torpedo-shaped bodies and powerful tails that help them swim. Great whites can reach speeds up to 24 km/hr (15 mph).

Great whites use their speed and coloring to help them hunt. They search for prey at the surface of the ocean while swimming below. Once they spot a target, they use a burst of speed to bump their prey while simultaneously biting it. They have several rows of teeth that can number into the thousands. As teeth fall out, they are rapidly replaced by those in the row behind them. These sharp, serrated teeth can be devastating. A single, large bite can be fatal.

When great white sharks are young, they feed on smaller prey, like fish and rays. As they grow larger, they feed more exclusively on marine mammals, such as sea lions, seals and small whales.

The great white is at the top of the food chain and has few threats in the ocean. Only orcas and larger sharks can pose a risk. The only other risk to the great white shark is human interaction. They are sometimes caught by accident in fishing nets or intentionally sought out by sport fisherman. Their jaws and fins are sold for considerable amounts of money.

Not much is known about the mating habits of great white sharks. What is known is that after mating the female develops several eggs which hatch in her womb. The newly-hatched shark pups feed on unfertilized eggs in the womb as they develop before being born. In general, the mother gives birth to a litter of two to ten pups, each of which average 1.5 m (5 ft.) in length. Male great whites reach maturity at 9-10 years of age. Females mature even later, between 14 and 16 years of age. Female sharks are thought to give birth once every couple years, but even that is uncertain.

Great whites spend their time in temperate waters all over the world, although they have been known to make brief trips into colder water in the north. They live in the upper part of the ocean, towards the surface, and close to the shore, where sunlight shines through and prey is available.

Conservation Status

The great white shark is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, but it is on the cusp of being labeled endangered due to overfishing.

What You Can Do to Help

You can help great white sharks by not purchasing great white jaws or items made from their fins.

Great White Shark Distribution

Great White Shark Resources

Blog Posts about the Great White Shark

About the Author

P.A. Smith is a middle school Language Arts teacher. He is also a contributing editor of My House Rabbit.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Few creatures strike more fear in humans than the great white shark. In reality, great white shark attacks on humans are rare - and it is even rarer for one of these attacks to be fatal. However, the size of the great white shark and its efficiency as a predator add to the perpetuation of this unnecessary fear.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Fun Shark Facts for Kids

Although sharks have a reputation as destructive beasts that attack almost anything that enters their water habitat, the actual number of shark attacks is probably lower than you imagine.

There are many different types of sharks including the great white shark, hammerhead shark, bull shark, tiger shark and mako, they all offer varied and interesting information so read on and enjoy our cool shark facts.

Sharks do not have a single bone in their bodies. Instead they have a skeleton made up of cartilage; the same type of tough, flexible tissue that makes up human ears and noses.

Some sharks remain on the move for their entire lives. This forces water over their gills, delivering oxygen to the blood stream. If the shark stops moving then it will suffocate and die.

Sharks have outstanding hearing. They can hear a fish thrashing in the water from as far as 500 metres away!

If a shark was put into a large swimming pool, it would be able to smell a single drop of blood in the water.

Although most species of shark are less than one metre long, there are some species such as the whale shark, which can be 14 metres long.

A pup (baby shark) is born ready to take care of itself. The mother shark leaves the pup to fend for itself and the pup usually makes a fast get away before the mother tries to eat it!

Not all species of shark give birth to live pups. Some species lay the egg case on the ocean floor and the pup hatches later on its own.

Great whites are the deadliest shark in the ocean. These powerful predators can race through the water at 30 km per hour.

Unlike other species of shark, the great white is warm-blooded. Although the great white does not keep a constant body temperature, it needs to eat a lot of meat in order to be able to regulate its temperature.

A shark always has a row of smaller teeth developing behind its front teeth. Eventually the smaller teeth move forward, like a conveyor belt, and the front teeth fall out.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Shark Facts - Great White, Hammerhead, Attack, Habitat, Bull, Tiger, Interesting Info

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fun Shark Facts for Kids Although sharks have a reputation as destructive beasts that attack almost anything that enters their water habitat, the actual number of shark attacks is probably lower than you imagine.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Before we even got off the boat, we saw their shadowy figures in the clear water below.

As Norman Eiley, our boat driver, prepared to cast anchor, a handful of sharks and stingrays swam beneath the boat's wake. The 15 high school students I was traveling with started to squeal. "I never get to see sharks in the water!" said Emma Cooper-Mullin, 17, from Irvington, N.Y., with fins and snorkel in hand. "I really want to swim with one."

Holding a nurse shark at the Hol Chan Marine Reserve in Belize.

AmbergrisCaye.com

Within minutes, we were all in the water, making that dream come true. For the next hour, we snorkeled with a handful of nurse sharks and southern stingrays at Shark Ray Alley-a shallow sandbar just south of Ambergris Caye, an island in northern Belize. Shark Ray Alley is part of the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. It is illegal to catch fish there. Instead, tourism is the main draw.

Every day, boats full of tourists arrive at Shark Ray Alley, where tour guides feed chunks of fish guts to the animals. As a result, the area's sharks and rays-some bigger than we are-have become so used to people that they'll swim right up to you and even let you touch them.

And that's the problem. Just days before we snorkeled at Shark Ray Alley, Norman told me, a fisherman from the mainland had cruised in at 4 in the morning, caught 9 or 10 nurse sharks, and killed them to sell their fins and meat.

"People noticed them missing that day," Norman said. "They were complaining-no sharks, no sharks, no sharks. Nobody has ever done something like this before on a large scale."
Underwater national parks
Marine reserves, or sanctuaries, are supposed to prevent such incidents from happening. Like national parks under water, marine reserves are set up to protect designated areas of the ocean from fishing, instead favoring research, education, and tourism.

Published research on the benefits of marine reserves worldwide has exploded in recent years, says Jim Bohnsack, a fisheries biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Miami. "The scientific community is 99 percent supportive of marine reserves," he says. "They work for protecting biodiversity and protecting resources."

The idea is that a carefully designed network of protected areas should help the health of the entire ocean. Fish and other creatures can grow up safely inside reserves before spilling over the edges, where they become fair game for fishermen.

The Hol Chan Marine Reserve protects fish and other sea creatures.

AmbergrisCaye.com

"It's like an insurance policy," Bohnsack says. "If you make mistakes, you have something in the bank, like a savings account, that can help resupply areas that have been overfished."

In support of marine reserves, Bohnsack points to evidence that bigger fish tend to lay more eggs. So, fish inside reserves should be more likely to produce even more fish with stronger genes. In theory, everyone wins, including fishermen and conservationists.

"It's like having your cake and eating it, too," Bohnsack says.
Boosting conservation
Marine reserves also make sense economically, says Charles Acosta, an ecologist at Northern Kentucky University. By tracking lobsters, queen conch, and other animals with radio technology and using mathematical models to analyze population patterns, Acosta and his colleagues have come up with dollar figures to show fishermen that conservation will actually boost their business in the long run.

Acosta's work has contributed to a debate over what marine reserves should look like. "One of our biggest, most important results has been that there is a limit that you cannot go below in terms of size of reserve," he says. "If the reserve is too small, it will have no effect at all."

A southern stingray.

AmbergrisCaye.com

Still, plans to create marine reserves are often controversial, especially in places like the Florida Keys, where the fishing industry has a lot of money at stake.

And even after reserves are established, enforcement is often difficult and more expensive than most developing countries can afford. At Hol Chan, a ranger zooms around all day long, collecting fees from snorkelers and divers who visit the area.

You can pay a fine of up to $500 if you get caught stealing even a piece of coral. Other reserves rely more on word-of-mouth and the honor principle for protection.
Sharks in the wild
Unfortunately, those kinds of systems can backfire, as the recent incident at Shark Ray Alley demonstrates. "To have all those sharks living in one place is setting them up for something like this to happen," said Norman, who is also treasurer of the Belizean Tour Guide Association. He is now determined to track down and punish the shark poachers and to revise enforcement policies in Belize. "We all depended on the honesty of fishermen," he said.

Besides, Norman added, maybe it's better not to turn shark sightings into humdrum, everyday events. "It used to be when you saw a nurse shark it was like, 'Wow!,'" he said. "But after going to Shark Ray Alley, it's like 'Oh, there's another one.' The element of surprise has changed."

Given a choice between seeing a shark by chance in the wild and seeing a shark at a place like Sting Ray Alley, most of the students in our group reluctantly agreed. "I guess I would rather see sharks when no one else was around than at Shark Ray Alley," Emma said on the boat ride back to Ambergris Caye.

Her classmate Cheryl Berman, an 18-year-old senior from Armonk, N.Y., wasn't so sure. "I think both are pretty cool."
Going Deeper: Additional Information Word Find: Swimming with Sharks Questions about the Article

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fun shark facts for kids including photos and printable activity worksheets; suitable for Kindergarten through Grade 6.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Teachers' #1 Choice for Current, On-Level Nonfiction

Over 6 million students read Scholastic News every week! See why so many teachers rely on this exceptional magazine to engage their students, build nonfiction-reading skills, and increase content-area knowledge.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teachers' #1 Choice for Current, On-Level Nonfiction Over 6 million students read Scholastic News every week! See why so many teachers rely on this exceptional magazine to engage their students, build nonfiction-reading skills, and increase content-area knowledge.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sharks Endangered and Conservation

If you were face-to-face with a shark, what would your reaction be? Do not worry about getting away as fast as possible. Probably the shark will flee from you first.

While it is a truth that some shark species are animals that present a sort of danger to people, it is also true that humans have endangered the preservation of many shark species, despite all the physical and physiological adaptations they have achieved through evolution to survive in their natural environment.

The picture of the status of sharks is not encouraging. There are about 12 species considered dangerous for humans, but about 20 are in danger of extinction. How do you explain this? Their indiscriminate and incidental hunting and the destruction of their habitat are the main factors that caused this situation which, joined with the wrong information that most people know about them, endanger their survival which has exceeded hundred of millions of years.

SAD STANDARDS OF DANGER

In fact, estimations state that about 100 species out of 470 that exist in the world, are in a status of imminent danger to severe. The organization responsible for classifying animal status, including sharks, is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. From its perspective, all threatened species are under continuous evaluation, and a diagnostic is provided that is an indicator of dangers, causes, and consequences.

The organization has nine categories to classify the status of animals: Not Evaluated, Insufficient Data, Minor Concern, Vulnerable, Near Threatened, Endangered, Critically Endangered, Extinct in the Wild and Extinct. A shark species is considered threatened if the IUCN Red List includes it starting in the Vulnerable status as this category being "less risky" among all the critical levels.

The Near-Threatened category, although it is not an indication of an endangered species, sets a precedent and indicates a potentially endangered species in the future. Vulnerable species face a high risk of extinction in the wild, Endangered species face a very high danger of extinction in their natural habitat and species classified in the Critically Endangered status face an extremely high risk of extinction.

THREATENED SHARKS

Predators, but also prey. According to IUCN analysts, among the approximately 470 species of sharks, 2.4 percent are Critically Endangered, 3.2 percent are Endangered, 10.3 percent are Vulnerable, and 14.4 percent are Near Threatened.

Famous species such as the great white shark ( Carcharodon carcharias) and the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) are Vulnerable although the size of the latter and the ferocity of the first are striking. The power of humans over species almost defenseless against them has won.

These are the 25 most threatened species of sharks in the world, classified as Endangered (EN) and Critically Endangered (CR):

Carcharhinus hemiodon. Pondicherry shark. (CR).
Centrophorus harrissoni. Dumb gulper Shark. (CR).
Glyphis gangeticus. Ganges shark. (CR).
Glyphis garricki. Northern river shark. (CR).
Glyphis siamensis. Irrawaddy river shark. (CR).
Haploblepharus kistnasamyi. Natal shyshark. (CR).
Isogomphodon oxyrhynchus. Daggernose shark. (CR).
Mustelus fasciatus. Striped smooth-hound. (CR).
Squatina aculeata. Sawback angelshark. (CR).
Squatina oculata. Smoothback angelshark. (CR).
Squatina squatina. Angelshark. (CR).
Carcharhinus borneensis. Borneo shark. (EN).
Glyphis glyphis. Bizant river shark. (EN).
Hemitriakis leucoperiptera. Whitefin topeshark. (EN).
Holohalaelurus favus. Honeycomb Izak. (EN).
Holohalaelurus punctatus. White-spotted Izak. (EN).
Lamiopsis temminckii. Broadfin shark. (EN).
Mustelus scmitti. Narrownose smooth-hound. (EN).
Sphyrna lewini. Scalloped hammerhead. (EN).
Sphyrna mokarran. Great hammerhead. (EN).
Squatina argentina. Argentine angelshark. (EN).
Squatina Formosa. Taiwan angelshark (EN).
Squatina Guggenheim. Angular angel shark. (EN).
Squatina punctata. Squatina punctata. (EN).
Triakis makulata. Spotted houndshark. (EN).

FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

In the last decades some species populations have decreased up to 90 percent, and some others, up to 70 percent due to anthropogenic causes that kill them directly and indirectly. Disinformation and slow reproduction do not help them to improve the recovery rate of these animals.

Today, sharks face an uncertain future full of risks in a world troubled by environmental problems. If the rate of extinctions increases considerably, in a few years, the seas may be without sharks bringing an enormous amount of environmental consequences with this. Action needs to be taken; there is still time!
Sources:
http://www.iucnredlist.org/

http://sharkopedia.discovery.com/shark-topics/shark-conservation/

http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/shark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_threatened_sharks
BioExpedition Publishing © 2017.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you were face-to-face with a shark, what would your reaction be? Do not worry about getting away as fast as possible. Probably the shark will flee from you first.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sand tiger sharks are also known as sand tigers and gray nurse sharks. Like all sharks, they breathe underwater, through their gills. But sand tigers have one unique habit. They are the only sharks that come to the surface to gulp air, but not to breathe. The air ends up in its stomach. The air make…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
8 Ways to Tell a REAL Sanctuary From a Roadside Zoo | PETA Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Roadside zoo or animal sanctuary? This list will explain the difference—so you can figure out if a place is hurting or helping animals.