July 31, 2011 Hammerhead Shark

[CaliforniaMama]

Freeze Frame
Photograph by Mick Tsikas, Reuters

Hoping to inspire a freeze on shark hunting, Australia's Melbourne Aquarium has put a 15-foot (4.5-meter) great hammerhead shark (pictured July 12) on ice.

Reproducing only once every two years, the species is especially vulnerable to overfishing and has been designated endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, meaning the great hammerhead faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild.

Commercial fishers accidentally caught the now frozen fish off Australia in March 2010, illustrating a key threat to sharks today. Off Africa alone, for example, more than eight million sharks are accidentally killed each year, experts reported in 2007.

From National Geographic http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...y-2011-photos/