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From killer to cuddly

AFTER THE giant panda, the fur seal and the whale, European environmental campaigners are set to launch their new poster idol: the shark. 'Sharks aren't as cuddly as pandas, but they play an important role in the ocean.

The removal of sharks from the food chain would have dramatic consequences," Sandrine Polti, marine scientist at environmental group Oceana said.

For centuries, sharks have been feared and reviled in European culture as murderous, unstoppable killers of the sea.

The block-busting Jaws films - portraying a Great White shark terrorizing Florida's surfers - have only strengthened that image.

"The Jaws movies didn't help at all. It's much more complex to talk to people about sharks than about, say, whales," Polti admitted.

But the immense biological family of the sharks - ranging from the dogfish, less than half a metre long, to the six-metre Great White and the 15-metre Whale Shark - plays a crucial role in the ocean food chain, scientists say.

The largest shark regularly spotted in European waters is the plankton-eating Basking Shark, which can grow up to 12 metres long. Great White sharks spawn and reproduce in the Mediterranean.

Among the family are sharks which clean the ocean floor of rubbish and sharks which hunt weak or injured animals. The Whale Shark, despite its immense size, feeds solely on plankton.

And the family is now under severe threat from commercial fishermen, experts say.

Whereas the EU's fisheries of cod, haddock and other food fish are closely regulated and policed, Europe's shark fisheries are all but unregulated - and as other fish stocks become exhausted, they are becoming more and more popular.

"Recently the European fisheries have really started targeting sharks more and more. It's mainly driven by the demand for their fins, which are a delicacy in Asia," Polti said.

Indeed, one of the most controversial practices in modern fishing is the catching of sharks solely for their fins. On some vessels, the sharks have their fins cut off while they are still alive, and are then thrown back into the water.

That practice is illegal, but current systems are simply inadequate to deal with the situation, Oceana's experts say.

"Sharks are among the most threatened species in the oceans," Polti said simply.