Rows of razor-sharp teeth, a carnivorous appetite and a bad reputation as a man-eater have made sharks a tough public-relations challenge for conservationists striving to rally support for protecting their dwindling numbers.

Tactics for bringing attention to the sharks' plight have included adopt-a-shark programs, awareness stickers designed by cartoonist Jim Toomey, and a public disavowal of the Chinese delicacy shark's fin soup by NBA star Yao Ming.

It's easy to see why tales of attacks, with their combination of fascination and mortal fear, grab headlines.

The Global Shark Attack File said the year's first shark attack was Jan. 5 off Kaua'i. That shark, estimated at up to 8 feet, bit a 13-inch half-moon chunk out of a surfer's board. The surfer was unhurt, and the spat-out chunk later washed up on shore.

Fatalities are few. Of the 86 known and suspected shark encounters worldwide in 2006, only seven are known to have been fatal, and shark involvement in another two ocean fatalities was uncertain, according to the attack file.

Meanwhile, about 100 million sharks and their close relatives are killed each year, either deliberately or as fishermen's bycatch, according to the Shark Alliance, a five-month-old international coalition of advocacy and ocean-recreation groups.

That would make for a fatality ratio of about 1 to 10 million, some conservation advocates point out.

"They're not all just teeth," said Sonja Fordham, policy director of the Belgium-based Shark Alliance and director of the shark conservation program of the Washington-based Ocean Conservancy.

Over the past 15 years both the public and government ocean managers have come to realize that sharks — which include more than 400 species — are a more diverse group than the voracious monster portrayed in "Jaws," she said.

Sharks range from the world's largest fish, the whale shark, which grows up to 50 feet long and feeds mostly on plankton and other small prey, to the diminutive cookie-cutter shark, a bioluminescent fish that grows up to 20 inches and cuts plugs of flesh out of its much larger prey.

Relatively few species pose a threat to humans.

About 20 percent of the world's sharks are estimated to be threatened, Fordham said.

Public effort can come in the form of petitioning lawmakers, changing fishing practices or choosing not to make a meal out of species deemed to be in trouble, advocates say.

The most feared of sharks, the great white, is also among the most protected. In New Zealand, fines of up to $172,000 and prison sentences of six months for harming the fish are about to go into effect.

The path to protection, however, is more difficult for lesser-known shark species such as the spiny dog fish, which has an unfortunate name and what some call "beady eyes," Fordham said.

Several years ago the Ocean Conservancy faced just such a challenge when it led a push to get U.S. protection for the smalltooth sawfish, a shark relative with a bizarre-looking, long snout ringed with protruding teeth.

"When these species are going up against salmon and right whales ... and other endangered marine mammals, they're not exactly the most cuddly of the group," Fordham said.

The campaign — including Toomey's cartoon sticker featuring a kindly looking shark saying, "Please help protect my pal, the endangered sawfish" — brought an unprecedented response and helped lead to the sawfish's listing as endangered in 2003. Toomey does a syndicated comic strip called "Sherman's Lagoon," which features a great white shark named Sherman and his sea turtle sidekick Fillmore.

Shark finning, the practice of killing sharks for their fins used in a popular Chinese soup, is considered to be among the biggest threats to sharks.

Awareness campaigns and documentaries have brought attention to the issue, which even made it into celebrity news last summer after the San Francisco-based conservation group WildAid persuaded the Chinese-born Ming to join the campaign.

Visitors to the Shark Trust Web site can "adopt" a great white shark for about $39, with proceeds going to research and conservation.

The trust and other groups also promote the value of live sharks as an attraction for scuba divers. Whale sharks can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for local businesses that cater to divers seeking to view the giant animals, said Marie Levine, executive director of the Princeton, N.J.-based Shark Research Institute, which, in addition to its advocacy work, organizes trips for divers on shark research vessels.

"Sharks underwater are just the most magnificent animals," Levine said. "They just move with such grace you expect to hear music."