Reports show that shark populations are on the rise, but experts say that there is no evidence to support the idea that more sharks mean more attacks. Both sharks and humans are apex predators, so some conflicts are to be expected. The fact is that humans are far deadlier to sharks than sharks are to humans. Conservationists estimate that up to 100 million sharks of all kinds are killed each year, through practices ranging from sport fishing and commercial longline fishing to shark finning for soup. Scientists see it as good news, not bad, that shark populations are growing in the Atlantic as well as the eastern North Pacific, as "healthy shark populations is critical to having a healthy ocean," said Dean Grubbs, a shark researcher at Florida State University's Coastal and Marine Laboratory.
