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The gap between how humans treat dolphins and how humans treat sharks has gotten wider. Many ancient cultures worshiped sharks as gods. Now it’s hard to get people to agree to take basic steps to ensure that species of sharks don’t go extinct, while they’ll try to move heaven and Earth to save 16 dolphins. It’s hard to get people to care about the brutal, unsustainable, and wasteful practice of shark finning that’s wiping out whole species of sharks, but a movie about a single dolphin that loses a fin is considered a must-see family classic.

The success of “Dolphin Tale” got me thinking. Dolphins and sharks are both top predators, so dolphins are no more ecologically important than their elasmobranch counterparts. Dolphins have it much easier than sharks. The world isn’t fair to sharks, just because they were born with behaviors that makes it harder for them to benefit from a growing global concern about biodiversity. This is a fact, decades after the birth of the environmental movement.

I am not a shark. I’m not a dolphin either. I’m a human, and I was born into a completely different set of circumstances than either group of marine predators. Life wasn’t as hard for me as it is for a shark. This doesn’t mean that I’ve given up on sharks. I still believe that it’s possible for a group of sometimes-unpopular animals to get the legal protections they need to avoid extinction. Still, even decades after the birth of the environmental movement.

Read More “If I were an unappreciated endangered shark” »