Sharks and Stocks: The Modern Portfolio Theory
100 million sharks each year are killed for their fins, as bycatch and a bunch of other silly reasons…but
The odds of being killed by drowning in your bathtub are 1 in 840,000
The odds of being killed by an asteroid are 1 in 1.9 million… and
The odds of being killed by a shark are 1 in 7 million
Even after several years, the perception that sharks are mighty dangerous shows to prove how difficult it is to change the status quo.
I will however do my bit and share a bloody (not) experience in Fuvahmulah, an island literally on the equator and part of the island nation - Maldives (in case you like hovering over google maps like I do - https://goo.gl/maps/1TaTUjSFJLGRTpeU8)
I was lucky to witness an age-old relationship between the locals and sharks surrounding this isolated island in Maldives. The fishermen on that island catch tuna and other local fish using traditional fishing methods (no large-scale fishing trawls, fishing nets or the likes). The local fishermen get off their dinghis, the sun gleams through the harbour sparkling the palm trees, moving towards the small market near the harbour. After their daily sales to the salami lovers, the fishermen naturally generate a lot of fish scrap (for example the tuna heads) that needs to get recycled back into the ecosystem.
What do you think happens next?
The fishermen discard this scrap back into the water surrounding the harbour. In a short whiel, huuuuuge tiger sharks ascend from the depths…
Having four-five of these 20-feet beasts lurking around you is exactly what you’d expect in a National Geographic documentary and not in reality! Tiger Sharks are known to be very inquisitive and love a good staring competition. One did come seriously close to me… right until I couldn’t stare at Pirate (the dive instructors have named them all) any longer, and then she gracefully swirled away. Unreal.
Coming back to tackling this status quo bias - the relationship between the locals and sharks is sacrosanct. The locals on the island tell me that they never caught sharks even when they can easily do so and make $$$$$, albeit for a short-term.
So do these locals at Fuvah have some rationale for not fishing these sharks? Is there a status quo that they have been attuned to? It is very likely that their ancestors knew the importance of sharks in keeping the ecosystem throbbing.
Finally, I would like to draw an interesting parallel that I thought of a few days ago. Let us look at Sharks as an asset in the portfolio of all the fish species in the ocean. What role does the Shark play in this portfolio? Sharks form the crux of the portfolio because they hold minimum risk and maximize returns. Am I making this claim out of fin air? Several studies have shown that sharks are crucial to the survival of the ocean ecosystem, a claim even acknowledged on the recent Netflix documentary, Seaspiracy.
So, the question remains - how do we save our sharks?
