Relationship To Humans
Of the nine known species of hammerhead, three can be dangerous to humans: the scalloped, great, and smooth hammerheads.
The great and the scalloped hammerhead are listed on the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) 2008 Red List as endangered, whereas the smalleye hammerhead is listed as vulnerable. The status given to these sharks is as a result of over-fishing and demand for their fins, an expensive delicacy. Among others, scientists expressed their concern about the plight of the scalloped hammerhead at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston. The young swim mostly in shallow waters along shores all over the world to avoid predators.
Shark fins are prized as a delicacy, and overfishing is putting many hammerhead sharks at risk of extinction. Fishermen who harvest the animals typically cut off the fins and toss the remainder of the fish, which is often still alive, back into the sea. As of 2010 there have been 33 attacks, but no fatalities.
Read more about this topic: Hammerhead Shark
Famous quotes containing the words relationship to, relationship and/or humans:
“Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“When any relationship is characterized by difference, particularly a disparity in power, there remains a tendency to model it on the parent-child-relationship. Even protectiveness and benevolence toward the poor, toward minorities, and especially toward women have involved equating them with children.”
—Mary Catherine Bateson (20th century)
“The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)