BIMINI, Bahamas -- Who can forget the unsettling images of hundreds of sharks amassing right off South Florida's beaches recently? It made some people wonder if sharks were invading.

But the experts say it happens every year, as sharks gather to head down to the Florida Keys to mate. And, experts say, they pose no imminent danger to humans.

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Sharks: Who Is Really At Risk?

But now, some of those same sharks are themselves in real danger from a little-known threat.

Shark Sightings In South Florida Feb. 20, 2006: Images July 5, 2005: Diving With Sharks June 29: Fisherman Reels In Shark June 27: Sharks At Haulover Beach April 14: Sharks Near Palm Beach April 5: Sharks Spotted Off Juno Beach March 30: Hundreds Of Sharks Spotted Along South Florida Coast March 18: Sharks Swarm Off Delray Beach Interactive: All About Sharks 2005 Attacks June 25: Teen Killed In Shark Attack June 28: 2nd Victim To Be OK July 2: Shark Bites Tourist On Ankle

Sharks' violent and intimidating presence has led humans not just to fear them, but hate them too.

"'The only good shark is a dead shark.' This was the prevailing view," says the University of Miami's shark expert Sonny Gruber. "Now I have 17 to 18 kids here that think sharks are just the absolute most fantastic thing. And they would be right."

Gruber hs run his "shark lab" in Bimini for 20 years, doing world-class research into why sharks are so important to humans. "There are 13 species of sharks that thrive in this water," he says. "Big, you know, these big rapacious sharks."

But studies say humans kill 100 million sharks every year worldwide. If you remove sharks from the top of the food chain, you disrupt the web of life we enjoy in Florida: coral reefs, seafood, fishing. Bimini's extraordinary ecosystem fuels ours. It's just 50 miles from Miami, closer than Key Largo. Many of those sharks seen off the Florida shore recently were from Bimini.

Scientific research goes around the clock at the Bimini shark lab, measuring juvenile sharks and releasing them in the moonlit seas. "It's a shark researcher's paradise," says Gruber. "But it won't be much longer."

Bimini's pristine environment is under threat. The critics say that a massive construction project, if allowed to be built out to completion, will dramatically and permanently change Bimini's rare and fragile environment.

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Resources:
Bimini Bay Resort And Casino
Sonny Gruber's Shark Lab
Pew Institute For Ocean Science
Ocean Conservancy
Mangrove Action Project
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The $100-million resort hotel and casino, named Bimini Bay, includes a mega-yacht marina, with condos and multi-million-dollar mansions. They advertise you can swim with a dolphin. The project is approved by the Bahamian government despite a commitment to protect this very spot as a marine preserve.

"Bimini Bay's project is the project that will put Bimini back where it used to be back in its glory days," says Leonard Stuart, the regional tourism director on Bimini. The island's imini's of 1,800 will swell and about a fourth of Bimini will be consumed by the project.

Gruber's team is finding construction is already impacting this prime shark habitat. And the eerie netherworld of the mangroves, crucial for sharks and fish, will be replaced with a golf course.

The developer is the Capo Group of Miami. They declined requests for an interview from NBC 6. But in writing they said they're "fully committed to maintain, protect and enhance all environmental conditions." And they'll have "a positive impact" on the environment, and the community.

Gruber, however, is not buying any of it.

"If the resort is fully built as it's planned, not only will the sharks disappear from this island, but the very fish and conch and lobster that populate the reefs out here will be gone," he says.

Gruber says he met with the developer and pleaded with him to build it with less impact. "But he said 'no.' He'd rather have his golf course and bring a little bit of South Dade, Kendall Drive over here to this wonderful island. And that's what he's going to do."

The developer says he has to have the golf course and other amenities to make it profitable. But Gruber is running out of time and energy. In two years, he retires. "It's made me pretty bitter to see this allowed to happen to this incredibly beautiful and pristine place," he says.

Scientists like Gruber say we'll see fewer shark gatherings, frightening as they are, as the ocean's top predator fights to survive.

The developer emphasizes that everything it's doing has the approval of the Bahamian government. So conservation groups from around the world, even school kids, are firing off protest letters to the government in Nassau, Bahamas.

Their hope is to limit the size of the project that will change the island of Bimini.