Lucy's Shark Experience

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Lucy's Shark Experience

     On August 22 I got an amazing chance to stand up for sharks and the ocean ecosystem. I was about to go to bed and I heard my mom gasp. My dad had just shared with her County Commissioner Ron Beaty's plan to set baited drum lines to trap the sharks near popular beaches. Sharks found still alive would be shot then brought away from the beaches and discarded into the ocean. I heard about the plan before many other people did and jumped into action. I wrote him an email right then explaining why it would be a bad idea. Here it is:

Dear Mr. Beaty, 
I am a twelve year old ocean advocate and I felt the need to share some information with you when I heard about your shark mitigation proposal. By killing the Great White Sharks you are destroying the ocean ecosystem around the Cape. The sharks balance the ecosystem. When you kill them off you knock the ecosystem off of balance. Sharks are the predator of seals, not people, and when we kill the sharks the seals overpopulate. The seals would then eat all the fish. This would then cause the fish population to plummet. The fishing industry on the Cape would then die and we would lose a big portion of our economy. Everything that depended on the fish for food would die too because it would be extremely hard for them to find food. Also without the fish there would be many algae blooms. The whole local ocean ecosystem would be ruined, all because people are not educated enough about sharks and the ocean.

Here are a few statistics to get you thinking:
  • 1996, buckets and pails injured almost 11,000 Americans. Sharks injured 13.
  • The U.S. has an average of just 19 shark attacks every year and one shark attack fatality every year. In coastal U.S. states more than 37 people die of lightning strikes.
  • You are more likely to be bitten by a New Yorker on the New York subway than by a shark. 
  • Falling coconuts have killed more people than sharks. 
  • For every human killed by a shark, humans kill approximately 2,000,000 sharks (2 MILLION!), destroying the ocean ecosystem.
In fact, thanks to the Great Whites, our ocean ecosystem is improving. Brian Skerry, the famous National Geographic ocean photographer, who travels the world recently said that he was amazed to see our ocean ecosystem improving, thanks to the presence of sharks. We are extremely lucky to have sharks living in our waters and killing them would be the worst thing to do.

Sincerely, 
Lucy Swain (12)


He emailed me back the next day just one sentence:

"The "Shark Hazard Mitigation Strategy Proposal" & process will continue forward until another viable alternative is offered."

My mom posted my letter on Facebook and in just a couple days, it got liked and shared hundreds of times:


It got lots of attention on local news.


And it also got some big news coverage.


The day after I wrote the letter my mom got a call from NBC Boston because they wanted to interview me. I was nervous to get interviewed but I knew it would help spread awareness about helping sharks. It went really well and I am so glad I got to do that.

County Commissioner Ron Beaty ended up withdrawing his proposal and the sharks are now safe!!! YAY!!!!!!!!






Location: Wellfleet, MA, USA

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