| Noah's shark | | Print | |
 Save the whales. Protect the panda. But sharks? No thanks. I am scared of sharks. Not just a little nervous, pathologically panic-stricken. Jaws made a big splash at cinemas when I was 10 and changed my life forever. "Don't be a drama queen!" you say? As phobias go, this one is easily managed. Arachnophobes can never truly relax – creepy-crawlies could be anywhere. To avoid sharks, just stay out of the sea. Simple – if you grow up in Derbyshire, Warwickshire, London or even the British seaside (just show your goose bumps and you can stay safely on dry land without an inquisition). But grow up on the warm coast of North Carolina, and the shark issue rears its ugly head. A lot.
Is it safe to go back in the pool?
 After watching the film (through my fingers), I didn't dip a toe in the ocean for an entire year, a slave to my 'fight or flight' instinct. (I chose flight.) And once I heard that sharks could survive in a chlorinated pool for 24 hours, I avoided pools too, at least on my own (even one companion halves the risk of attack). Of course there's the fact that someone would actually have to catch a shark and put it into the pool, but I was taking no chances.When I did eventually venture back into the ocean, its magic was lost on me. Whether riding waves on a boogie board or years later having a romantic dip in the still blue Caribbean, I could never truly savour the moment, too busy looking over my shoulder for a telltale fin. Damn you, Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg!
So you'll forgive me for allowing myself a brief smile when I read that sharks are becoming extinct. Oh to live my life again sans sharks. I'd be a carefree sprite instead of a neurotic worrywart. Oh, the waves I would surf, the moonlit dips I would skinny...
 The smile was momentary – logically I am aware that shark extinction is bad news, even for me. Disrupting natural food chains has unpredictable results, as shown in a 2007 study by American and Canadian scientists (led by experts at Dalhousie University, funded by Pew Institute for Ocean Science.) Over 70 million sharks are killed for their fins and meat each year, plus the millions scooped up accidentally in fishermen's nets. This means the smaller fish and rays they would have eaten now survive. Sounds good so far. Trouble is, the researchers found these smaller predators are running riot, gorging on smaller fish, scallops and shellfish – and if those are wiped out, the consequences will be more dire than just not-so-satisfying fish pies.“Maintaining the populations of top predators is critical for sustaining healthy oceanic ecosystems,” says the study's co-leader Charles Peterson, a professor at the Institute of Marine Sciences, UNC-Chapel Hill (one of my almae matres). “Despite the vastness of the oceans, its organisms are interconnected, meaning that changes at one level have implications several steps removed."
Similar scenarios are happening on land. Climate change, pollution and habitat destruction are threatening more plant and animal species than ever. Given millennia, they would adapt, but the speed of these changes means unpredictable outcomes. And as in the oceans, land life is all interconnected. So how will extinctions (or severely reduced numbers) of various species affect our food supply, our lives, our planet?
Last year, the world's attention was on the honeybee and CCD (colony collapse disorder) where up to 90%
 of bee colonies simply disappeared. Now, the spotlight's on frogs and other amphibians, which are being struck down by a fungus exacerbated by warmer temperatures stemming from climate change. Up to half of the world's amphibian species could die out if the trends continue. Like sharks, amphibians are a vital part of their ecosystems. If they disappear, the consequences will reverberate, in ways we may not even yet suspect. Well, they eat insects, so we can certainly predict one very unpleasant consequence of fewer amphibians.
Amphibians' thin skins make them susceptible to pollutants and chemicals (they've already shown fertility problems and feminisation). And now they're dying. Are frogs modern-day canaries in the coalmines? Why aren't we paying attention?
 The Amphibian Ark (AArk) is fighting back, declaring 2008 The Year of the Frog. It's working with top zoos to try to breed threatened amphibians in captivity. It's not just frogs. Scientists believe animal species are dying out at a shocking rate, what's being called the Earth's 'sixth mass extinction.' But it would be impossible to breed the world's some 10,000 endangered species in captivity. The Frozen Ark is taking the next step, preserving animal DNA for study long after they've disappeared from the earth. The project is supported by the Natural History Museum, the Zoological Society of London and Nottingham University.
Plants are threatened too, and Kew Gardens is creating a 'Millennium Seed Bank' to preserve seeds of the world. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Saving the animals (especially cute and cuddly ones) used to be a hobby for the idle rich. Today, the fate of all animals (yes, even sharks) should motivate us all. After all, we're next – and there's no ark on the horizon.
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