This man packed seven sharks in a small backyard pool, hoping to make big money

Wild animals do not deserve to be turned into pets, play things, food, trinkets or anything else — they deserve to stay wild and free, with their communities beside them. That applies to marine animals, too — including sharks.

Yet Joshua Seguine of New York state decided to hold seven sandbar sharks, a protected species, captive in his home's small pool, swimming around in circles and crammed into these suburban quarters. Why? Because he wanted to make a boatload of money off of the poor creatures by selling them off, one by one.

Investigators also found several dead sharks around his home. This included the snout of one endangered shark, which had been severed from its body.

These sharks ended up in one man's backyard pool because their bodies are still considered extremely valuable in the United States. And, what's worse, selling sharks is still legal in the country. That needs to change. Sign the petition!

This isn't this particular man's first run-in with sharks. Four years ago in 2017, he was arrested for locking five sharks in a small tank, which he then strapped to the back of his truck. He was found actively driving around in the state of Georgia while these flustered and disoriented sharks were sloshing about, totally terrified, in the rear of his vehicle.

Many of the sharks — dead and alive — that Seguine has been caught with are listed as vulnerable and severely overfished by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The main reasons people seek out these particular animals is to turn them into leather, oil, and meals.

Those fish that authorities were able to rescue are now living in slightly larger spaces at the New York Aquarium, but the problem still remains: people in the U.S. are able to get their hands on critically endangered sharks and sell them off for parts.

Sign the petition and urge the U.S. Congress to ban the sale of sharks in the United States!