Every year, millions of people go to the beach with their families to spend time together and enjoy the beautiful view of the ocean. The ocean welcomes everyone with an open heart and allows people to enjoy the beauty of mother nature. As Robert Wyland put it "The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul." Every summer break, after finishing a long and tedious school year, my friends and I go to the beach to sit back and take a break from our busy lives. The soothing sound of waves brings feelings of relaxation among every individual. The ocean is a world of its own and home to many aquatic animals and plants. More than 75% of this underwater planet is covered with beautiful oceans and seas. And just like all the other things in this world, they require a good balance between them to work properly-- the ocean needs a good balance to function properly considering that it is home to the world's biggest ecosystem on this planet. The rapid decline in shark population in past few decades is threating ocean's ecosystem balance. Sharks sit on the top of the food chain of marine ecosystem; therefore they play the biggest role in the oceans. Since sharks are apex predators they directly affect the creature below them in the food chain and the smaller fish they feed on. The absence of these predators in the ocean can disrupt the entire the entire ecosystem in the ocean which can be extremely harmful for both sea animals and humans. 

Ever since I was a kid, I have been interested in marine life. While growing up, my father and I always went fishing with our friends. It is one of my favorite things to do and I've made some great memories while being out on the boat and feeling the excitement of catching a fish. Since fishing is my favorite thing to do, I've always been interested in reading about different types of sea creatures. Due to the rapid decline in shark population, I have noticed that there has been a lot of tension raised in the oceans over the past few years. So I decided to look more deeply into this issue and it made me realize how important sharks are and how the marine ecosystem without them can be disastrous. Therefore, I decided to do my research paper on shark extinction and how it can affect humans. Sharks are probably one of the most feared mammals on the earth and always seen as the evil creatures. Before settling on to this topic, I personally use to be disgusted by these ugly mammals but after doing research for ILP's my opinion has changed. More than 50% of the shark population has decreased in last 20 years. There are many reasons why this is happening and the main cause of this issue is shark finning. Shark finning is the practice of cutting off shark's fins and throwing the injured and handicapped sharks in the ocean. The finless sharks, unable to swim get eaten by other fish or sink down the ocean and suffer painful death. Sharks' fins are used to make the famous shark fin soup. The shark finning industry makes billions of dollars each year by killing these innocent mammals. I believe that this practice is very inhumane and cruel. This is one of the reasons that I believe that this research paper could be biased if I just talk about how shark finning is brutal, but I can avoid bias in this paper if I provide other causes of decline in shark population and how it can affect humans. For example, I can talk about how absence of sharks will lead to rise in population of creatures right below these predators in food chain like tuna and many more which will lead to the decline of population of smaller fish in the sea that millions of people feed of and make money of. Millions of people can lose their jobs if there is no fish for them to catch. The commercial fishing industry is one of the biggest industry among others. If there are no fish in the ocean to catch in the ocean, people working in this industry will be jobless and will be seeking for jobs out of their professions and stealing jobs of others causing huge disturbance in our economy. There are many regions on this planet, where people are mostly depend on fish. Ichiro Nomura, Assistant- Director General for Fisheries claims that " around 97 percent of fishers are in developing countries. Fishing is especially important there." This significant number of people can be effected by the unbalanced ocean's ecosystem. 

Through this argument, I hope that people realize shark extinction can have a huge effect on humans therefore this issue needs to be taken seriously.  I also hope that people look at sharks from a different point of view and their opinion about these creatures change and realize that these mammals are not as evil as we make them sound. However, I don't think I can address this issues into 8-10 pages long. I feel like there is not much information provided on this issues on internet for me to able to write such a lengthy paper. So far, I have many agreements regarding this issue. I have found that sharks are endangered globally. There are many species of sharks that are already extinct or are on the verge of being extinct. Through my research I have also found that if we don't stop killing sharks at the rate we do today, all the sharks will be extinct in the next twenty years, therefore actions must be taken immediately to avoid this catastrophe. There is also an agreement that shark finning is the main cause of decline of shark population; therefore, it needs to banned globally. President Bill Clinton signed a bill in year 2000 banning shark finning in the United states however, this organized crime is still on rise in the states.  I think this question falls on a very small scope because I feel like not many people will be interested in reading about sharks and there are very few people who actually care about these creatures. The Complexity of this question falls right in the middle considering there are a lot of factors that lead to the decline of shark population for example, shark finning trade, polluted oceans, noise pollution and fishing. All of these activities has a huge impact on sharks and their declining population. 
