The Lion's Pride vol. 2 (Jun. 2014) | Page 46

39 the United States if an animal is considered endangered we have laws against killing them. A violation of those laws could result in jail time and a fine. Furthermore, we have many national parks around the country that can help endangered animals and give them a natural refuge in which they may hopefully prosper. But, for sharks and other sea creatures, it is more difficult to keep them safe. Even though there are aquatic wildlife preserves around the world, sea life can simply move in and out of the boundaries of the preserve at any time. Many land animals are frightened to enter our heavily populated areas, because they are frightened of the noise, or the presence of people in those areas. For a shark there are no warning signs that they could be entering dangerous nonregulated waters. Can the sharks flourish once again? Most likely, for some of the endangered species of shark it will be too late to save them. One species that is already at a dangerously low level is the hammerhead, of which Rosenthal (2011) states, “The presence of the once-common hammerhead in large parts of the western Atlantic… has decreased by up to 89 percent over the last 25 years” (para. 5). The task for