Handbook on Sharks of Indian Waters:Diversity, Fishery Status, Trade and Conservation

This sight of triangular fins slicing through the water usually elicits immediate fear, distress or panic in people. Response to such sightings is normally to say that a shark or a school of sharks is nearby, preparing to attack. Sharks-the shadows in the sea have long been depicted as evil, sinister culprits inhabiting our ocean and estuaries (Schwartz, 1984). From time immemorial sharks have been the objects of amusement for the sea-faring men and anglers and they were fished for sports. At certain times of history they were dreaded as monsters of the sea because of the ravage they wrought on bathers, fishermen and their boats. Even the very appearance of a heavily built creature with open mouth full of sharp and ferocious teeth and black fins gives a fearsome apparition to unarmed people taking bath in the shallow waters (Devadoss, 1996). Sharks were considered of limited interest from the economic point of view, but the increase in the value of its meat and other derivatives in the global market has resulted in the sudden emergence of exclusive shark fishery which has almost resulted in the total depletion of various species of sharks in the world.