Great white sharks are one of the most feared predators in the ocean. But how many of them are there, really? Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Great white sharks, as scary as we’re led to believe, are incredibly important. For years now, their overall numbers have been declining — but “overall” doesn’t mean that they’re declining everywhere. In this video, shark aficionado Carlos Gauna, who runs a massively popular YouTube channel called The Malibu Artist, dives into “the latest population studies of great white sharks, from the rebounding numbers in Cape Cod to the concerning decline in South Africa and the groundbreaking research of the California White Shark Project.”
There are a myriad of reasons why white sharks are so important to the ecosystem. They’re an apex predator, which means they aren’t prey for many other animals (orcas do enjoy their livers, though), and their numbers plays a role in the numbers of the animals below them on the food chain. They serve as population control for things like seals and sea lions, which in turn helps to prevent things like overgrazing of seagrass and reef health.
They, like most apex predators, tend to go after sick or weak animals — not because whites have any real understanding of population control, but because those are the easier ones to weed out. In doing so, however, they help with disease control and ensuring healthier, stronger animals procreate. They’re thought of as an indicator species that lends a peek into the overall health of the ecosystems they call home. In short, we need them, because we rely on those ecosystems to survive.
It does get a little complicated, though, because we do not live in a vacuum. Some places have higher numbers of shark attacks after shark protection measures are put in place — Reunion Island springs immediately to mind — but there’s no getting around the fact that great whites are necessary for the overall health of the oceans.
“Despite its fearsome reputation, its large size and low productivity (reproductive rates, growth rates, age at maturity, longevity, etc.) make the white shark vulnerable to declines from human impacts,” NOAA explains. “Due to these natural vulnerabilities, the white shark is one of the most widely protected sharks globally.”
Because of its importance, great white sharks are probably the most well-studied species of shark. They tend to stick to a routine, aggregating in certain areas of the world at certain times, so studying their movements is relatively easy. That said, there is still so much we don’t know about them. “Many basic questions about their abundance, life history, habitats, and movements remain unanswered,” NOAA continued.
In order to learn more about them, researchers use methods like satellite tracking and photo ID. Over the decades, scientists have been able to get a clearer picture of the great white shark, but the world’s oceans are vast places with many secrets.
The video you see above attempts to decode a few of those secrets, but there are still so many we’ve yet to uncover.
