The cosmetic industry is driving sharks to extinction through its use of shark-derived squalene, which accounts for 90% of oil in trade and the deaths of 3 million sharks annually. 

Actual catch figures are estimated to be at least twice as high factoring in the impact of illicit and unreported fishing activity.
Squalene comprises up to 96% of a shark’s liver making sharks the richest source to exploit, even though squalene can also be derived from plant sources like olives, corn, sugar, wheat, amaranth, or tobacco.
Shark squalene is valued at 30% less than plant-derived varieties allowing for higher profit margins when sold as ‘vegan.’ 
Only 74 of 440 shark species are protected under CITES.
Often protections are implemented unilaterally and not necessarily by all CITES parties. 
As a result, 25% of shark species appear on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Sharks have a late age of maturation and very low fecundity. As apex predators, sharks regulate the abundance, spatial distribution and diversity of all plant and animal life beneath them. The loss of sharks causes the suffocating overgrowth of algae blooms, coral reef collapse, and the loss of biodiversity ultimately contributing to ocean acidification and trophic cascade. The ocean’s natural carbon cycling processes are disrupted when large vertebrates are removed through fishing and prevented from dying a natural death which allows them to draw their sequestered carbon downwards to the ocean floor and away from the atmosphere. In every sense, healthy shark populations uphold the health of our oceans. 

Oceans cover 71% of the Earth’s surface. They are our life-support system and a global commons that provide us with goods and essential ecosystem services from the food we eat to the oxygen we breathe. The oceans regulate the global climate; they mediate temperature, drive weather systems, and determine extreme weather events like droughts and floods. They are the world’s largest store of carbon, where an estimated 83% of the global carbon cycle is circulated through marine waters. When we remove sharks from their place at the top of oceanic ecosystems, we risk devastating fallout. We must keep sharks in the oceans and end their exploitation for cosmetic use.