1. By: Joe Chandler

2. Great Hammerhead Shark
 Great hammerhead sharks are the largest species of
hammerhead sharks reaching up to 17 feet in length. They
are different from other hammerheads because of their
length, they have a straighter and wider hammer than
most, and their back fin looks more like a dorsal fin. Most
weigh about 200-500 pounds and females get even heavier
than this when they are pregnant..

3. Feeding
 The Great Hammerhead Shark feeds on all kinds of
ocean animals. These include
crab, squid, octopus, lobster, many types of bony
fish, smaller sharks, and can even be cannibalistic. The
most interesting prey though is the stingray for which
it formed its hammer. They approach stingrays on the
ocean floor and pin them to the ground, then rotate
around and bites off both dorsal fins. This immobilizes
the ray and then, the shark feeds. They think that they
made the hammer adaptation for hunting and to
possibly increase the range of their Ampullae of
Lorenzini and to increase the range of sight.

4. Importance
 The Great Hammerhead Shark is important to the
Asians for the shark fin soup. They think that it
prevents cancer, is good for the heart, enhances skin
quality, lungs, bones, boots energy, lower cholesterol,
and many more things. With people thinking they are
this important to their health they don’t care that it is
being way over fished.

5. Human Effect
 Great Hammerhead Sharks like many others are being
threatened by illegal shark fishing. This is partly because
the Asians enjoy their shark fin soup, usually some parts of
the shark that could be used for other important things but
all but the fins are thrown away. Sometimes the skin is
saved for leather, the liver oil for vitamins, and the body
meat for fish meal. Even though they aren’t commonly
poaching sharks fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico and
North-western Atlantic have reduced the population there
by over 50% through by catch. When stuck in by catch the
Great Hammerheads usually suffer an over 90% mortality
rate.

6. Cont.
 The Great Hammerhead Shark is an endangered
species that is protected. This doesn’t stop the
poachers that continue to kill them. They have 55 pups
every 2 years and can live up to 20-30 years. With
fishermen killing them they don’t get to have their full
amount of babies which hurts the population.

7. Future Outlook
 I think that if we don’t try harder to prevent illegal
hunting they will either go extinct or be close to it in
our lifetime. They are killed at a high rate from by
catch and hunting so they don’t get the chance to have
the maximum number of babies they would have in
their lifetime. The number of these sharks are
declining despite efforts to protect them because of
legal by catch and the sneaky poachers.

8. The End