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With upwards of 3 million viewers, saying Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" is popular is an understatement. But the only way we'll get to enjoy "Shark Week" year after year is if we protect these majestic creatures. According to Ted Danson, author of Oceana, 9 out of every 10 sharks that inhabited the world in 1950 have vanished.

Check out these four ways to live a shark-friendly life:

#1. Don't support this fishy soup. The biggest reasons sharks are disappearing? "The answer is the relatively recent explosion in yet another seafood market, this one feeding one of the most controversial, wasteful, and certainly brutal fisheries in existence—shark fins," Danson says.

If you think $8.99 per pound is a steep price for salmon, consider that shark fins go for $300 per pound. Flavorless and mostly cartilage, shark fins are boiled down to make a soup that really just tastes like whatever else gets thrown in, says Dawson. "Yet this soup sells for $60 a bowl in China, and in the most expensive restaurants in the Chinatowns of London and San Francisco, it goes for as much as $400 a bowl."

Insanity, right? And it all boils down to one reason: Rarity is an expensive luxury. And economic booms have meant that more people can afford the prestige of this pointless soup.

The scariest part of this endeavor isn't the shark itself, it's how the fins are harvested. "As many as 70 million sharks netted or hooked worldwide each year have their fins hacked off and their still-living carcasses tossed back overboard as soon as they're caught," Danson explains.

#2. Eat sustainably caught fish. You might not go up to the fish counter at the grocery store and buy a filet-o'-shark, but that doesn't mean your dollar can't protect (or hurt) them. "Sharks make up huge number of bycatch victims—some 50 million a year are accidentally snagged by trawlers, longlines, and gill nets," says Danson. "That's half of the world's total shark catch.

In shrimping, for instance, for every one pound of shrimp that's caught, up to 10 pounds of marine life is thrown away, explains Dawson. To find out if your fish was sustainably caught, visit Fish2fork.com. (For more reasons to avoid shrimp, consider these disgusting shrimp facts.)

#3. Stop overfishing. Even if all of the sharks managed to escape bycatch, they'd still have a hard time surviving because of overfishing. Overfishing the oceans starves sharks of their prey, which knocks the entire underwater ecosystem out of whack, explains, Christina Dawn Morgan of Greenpeace. (Check out Greenpeace's Sustainable Seafood Consumer Hub to make sure you're making good choices at the supermarket.) Luckily, more and more retailers are selling more sustainably sourced fish and seafood.

#4. Support marine conservation efforts. Sometimes the underdog sharks don't get nearly enough attention. There are more than just hammerheads and great whites, and organizations like Oceana are dedicated to protecting all types of sharks, including lesser-known species.
"It's possible to save sharks," says Dominique Cano-Stocco of Oceana. "Scientists recently announced that we scored a huge win: Atlantic great white shark populations are finally rebounding, which is remarkable news for one of the ocean's most iconic species."

Unfortunately, other species, such as the dusky shark, are not having the same success. "Dusky shark populations have declined by 99 percent over the past 40 years off the U.S. Atlantic coast," says Cano-Stocco. Celebrate "Shark Week" by taking action: Help protect all types of shark here.

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