In fact the vast majority of sharks are much more likely to make a hasty exit whenever a human puts in an appearance. Only a handful of species have been implicated in aggressive behaviour towards humans and it is a very bad year that sees shark attacks exceeding a total of fifty and deaths more than twenty. Statistically you are more likely to die from being struck by lightning, from a bee sting or from a coconut falling on your head than from a shark. In fact sharks have far more to fear from us than we do from them. Each year an estimated 100,000,000 sharks die as a direct result of humans.
Sharks are slow to mature and usually produce only very few young each time they breed.
Some shark fisheries are removing more sharks from the sea than nature replaces. There is no doubt that many species must be facing serious declines that may lead to extinction. Sharks are caught for meat, their fins are used for the sharks' fin soup trade, their teeth and jaws sold as trophies and they are increasingly being seen as a cure-all for human ills with their cartilage being sold even in high street shops here in Plymouth. Not all sharks are killed by targeted fishing, untold numbers are dying as a result of being part of the bycatch of other fisheries. Vast nets and immense longlines armed with thousands of hooks catch these sharks, as well as dolphins, whales, turtles and seabirds by mistake - unwanted, the corpses are cast back into the sea.