Global Anti-Shark-Finning Campaign

Shoppers on Regents Streets in central London Likely got more than they bargained for this afternoon. In a dramatic illustration of how sharks are caught and killed for their fins, Alice Newstead, perfomance artist and former employee of LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, voluntarily had her skin pierced with actual de-barbed shark hooks and hung suspended from the ceiling in the window of one of LUSH’s busiest shops for all to see.

As a crowd gathered to watch in horror, Newstead said, “I am doing this because the demand for shark fin soup and other shark products is wiping out the shark population.” Unlike the 100 million sharks who are brutally slaughtered each year for their fins, Newstead commented, “I will be left with scars, but the wounds will heal.”

“Sea Shepherd is deeply impressed by LUSH’s commitment to shark conservation and its willingness to use its 500+ storefronts as a global platform for educating the public on such a critically important issue,” said Kim McCoy, International Executive Director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. “We applaud Alice for her courageousness in using her body as a tool to help educate consumers about the urgent need to protect sharks. She is an inspiration to us all.”

“Sea Shepherd will be presenting Alice Newstead with an award for courage for her incredible achievement in focusing public attention on the worldwide slaughter of sharks,” said Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd. “What she and LUSH have contributed to this conservation effort is enormous. The cruelty of the shark finning industry was brought intimately into focus with the piercing of Alice’s flesh and the dripping of her blood down her back. LUSH, Sea Shepherd, and Alice are very much aware that if we drive sharks to extinction, we will destroy our oceans, and if we do that, civilization will collapse and humanity will disappear.

What Alice did was not just for the saving of sharks, but for the salvation of humankind. Our admiration for her sacrifice is profound, and the scars that she will bear represent a rare courage demonstrating that we all must do what we can with the talents we possess to save our oceans.”

Today’s dramatic enactment of the gruesome manner in which sharks are caught kicks off the beginning of a global campaign between LUSH and Sea Shepherd. Each of LUSH’s storefronts across the UK now hosts window displays featuring Sea Shepherd’s jolly roger flag, LCD screens playing a continuous loop of Shark Angels footage, and other educational materials.

LUSH’s staff are dressing as pirates and handing out Sea Shepherd shark brochures (PDF) in an attempt to educate consumers about the desperate plight of sharks. Among other things, LUSH is urging consumers to boycott restaurants that serve shark fin soup and health food stores that sell shark cartilage supplements. LUSH has also delivered letters to local restaurants and health food stores asking them to “wash their hands” of this barbaric industry and stop selling shark products.

To assist these businesses in “cleaning up their act,” LUSH has created a new and cruelty-free product especially for this campaign, called Shark Fin Soap. The UK stores plan to sell a limited batch of 11,416 bars, with 100% of the proceeds going to Sea Shepherd. Why 11,416 bars? In recognition of the fact that a staggering 11,416 sharks are killed every hour, and that populations are being wiped out faster than they can reproduce.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE !!!

Humpbacks may be safe for a year: IWC

Japan is expected to agree to suspend hunting humpback whales for at least another year, the head of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) says.
IWC chair Bill Hogarth said he had convinced the Japanese not to include humpbacks in their scientific whaling program until at least 2009.
Dr Hogarth said allowing the Japanese fleet to include the species in its quota would have further split an already deeply-divided IWC.

"I think Japan ... will honour that until 2009 or get to the point when we do make bargains or don't make bargains," Dr Hogarth said on ABC Radio.

Japan had planned to include 50 humpbacks in last summer's hunt but backed down after strong condemnation from the global community.
Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett, who has arrived in Chile for the IWC meeting, plans to present a proposal to have the commission focus on the conservation of whales through non-lethal scientific research.

"What I will be emphasising is Australia's clear views on opposing the killing of whales in the Southern Ocean in the name of science and advocating a well researched proposal to modernise the IWC by introducing conservation management plans for whales, developing collaborative research partnerships and bringing about an end to so-called scientific whaling,"

Mr Garrett said the federal government would not compromise over the killing of whales for commercial or scientific purposes.

• "Australia hasn't come to the whaling commission to compromise at all," Mr Garrett said.

• "We are absolutely strongly of the view that we do not want to see the commercial exploitation of whale populations ... This commission needs to concentrate on the science of conservation, not on the science of killing whales, and that is the view we are taking to this meeting this week."

Mr Garrett said that in order to resolve these issues the IWC must be reformed into a legitimate scientific body.

• "Australia comes to this IWC with the clearest of views and that is we need to reform an organisation which has not been able to satisfactorily resolve any of these issues in the past," he said.

• "All that's happened is that we've had a sequence of arguments and acrimony and failed process.

• "If we're serious about the whaling commission being a body that resolves these issues then it needs to be based in legitimate, grounded and agreed science."

SHARK FINNING IN GALAPAGOS ISLAND, SHAME OR STUPIDITY ???

Either it be incidentally, arbitrarily, legal or illegally, the number continues being the same: one hundred million sharks killed every year in the planet. And it also happens in Galápagos!

I have not read about it, no one told me about it; I saw it with my own eyes, I personally gathered the net to take the photo for this article. It was difficult for me to raise it because on it, in it, and through it, hundreds of inert creatures were hanging, trapped. I was following the instructions of Franklin Guaranda, who was trying to obtain the necessary evidence to report to the Galápagos National Park. “Raise the net more”, “Hold it high and don’t move it”, “Twist it a little towards the light”, “Hurry it seems that the fishermen are coming”.

Disciplined as I am, held my breath and my tears. Never in my life had I seen a shark caught in a fishing net. A small black fin shark, like a little rubber fish, constituted a great part of the weight that I held under my arms.

With the Zodiac we traveled the approximately three hundred meters of net, from one end to the other, both tied to the beach, taking photographs and video. We saw at least three rays caught, agonizing, four inert sharks and, by of course dozens of Mullets also known in Ecuador as Lisas (Mugil sp.) which are the primary target of this type of fishing.

At six thirty in the morning, our passengers were at the top of Bartolomé Island, one of the most visited sites of the islands. From its height of one hundred and fifteen meters, they contemplate the sun illuminating San Salvador to the west, Santa Cruz in the distance, the north beach of Bartolomé with its golden half moon form and to the south… in the south beach… a circle of death, in broad day light.

The guides call to the boat. Giancarlo Toti, Graciela Cevallos, Walter Perez insist on the radio. Even as they are seeing it, they can’t believe it. The captain, Juan Robalino, authorizes a Zodiac, and with camera in hand, our only weapon and instrument of work, we rushed to the reported place. I have lived something similar in two previous occasions. I knew I was at risk of being insulted, as it has happened before, that we would have to be fast in case the fishermen became aggressive, and that we had to protect the camera. But everything came to pass very “civilized”, if the term fits.

Ashamed?

1. When the fishermen saw us arrive, they got into their boat and they went to the beach, to gather the net. They watched us, we watched them, we were very close to them, always with our camera in hand, but neither they nor we said a word. I want to think that with their silence they let us know that yes, they were ashamed, if not by the slaughter, then by their stupidity of having done this at this place.
   
2. it is not allowed to fish in a tourist area, and
   
3. No one is allowed to disembark on the beach, and the net was secured in each one its ends to dunes where marine turtles nest, one of the men ran stepping on who knows how many nests while he untied the net. Within the circle, in the water, there were turtles and at least five sea lions that were trapped and could not go anywhere, in addition to pelicans and frigate birds that were waiting to participate of the easy feast.

From the stern of their boat, of not more than ten meters in length, a full net full of Mullet hung under the water. We did not want to board the empty boat since we were less than them, so we could not see if they had caught more small sharks, which according to the detraction of Decree 2130, if caught “incidentally” are allowed to be sold on the mainland.

We cannot deny that in fact they were using a gill net for fishing Mullet. But there are hundreds of areas opened to legally fish mullet. So:

• Why fish in a tourist area which is known for its abundance of small shark, which in fact is the main attraction for the tourists here?

• Were they just there for the Mullet?

• Or were they hoping to “incidentally” catch some other small thing?

  That is outside our comprehension. We took photos, video and by all means, we called the Galapagos National Park immediately.

In less than two hours, a boat from the Park arrived at Bartolomé. The fishermen had gotten rid of all the evidence. But we counted on photos, video and our report was signed and ready. The fishing boat was taken to port with the personnel of the Marine Reserve Patrol of the Galápagos National Park and a member of Navy. There the legal procedures will be followed to impose the corresponding sanctions.

The South beach, on which our passengers walked to later that morning, was full of dead Mullet, and pelicans and frigate birds that were finally participating in their much awaited feast. One of the sharks “incidentally” killed was also beached. One of the one hundred million sharks that are killed every year in the world.

Either it be incidentally, arbitrarily, legal or illegally, the number continues being the same:
one hundred millions of SHARKS killed every year in the planet.
And it also happens in Galápagos!

Source:
By Paula Tagle
nalutagle@yahoo.com

DIVERS RAISE YOUR VOICES IN EVERY COUNTRY IN THE NAME OF OUR FLAG, TOWARDS SHARKS PRESERVATION.

Here a real cruelty called tournament:

Montauk Shark Tournament

Only days after congress passed the Shark Conservation Act of 2008, the slaughter of sharks is happening right here in our own backyard.
This weekend the Star Island Yacht Club Shark Tournament will take place in Montauk, NY.
The 2008 Annual Shark Tournament is being held June 12–14. This year's website boasts a prize pool of more that $1,000,000 the largest yet, which means that more sharks than ever are going to be killed. The greed and ignorance of the few will affect all of us.
Why must these types of actions always lead to the decimation of species before we stop the madness?

PLEASE HELP US AND HUNDREDS OF OTHERS IN PROTEST OF THE STAR ISLAND YACHT CLUB SHARK TOURNAMENT THIS WEEKEND.

Please bring your cameras and join Wendy Heller from DivePhotoGuide.com this Saturday and help cover this horrible event so that it can be broadcast to the world in efforts to create more awareness and help save our sharks. We will be working with major media to prevent this event from continuing next year.

You can also join the Humane Society rally to show your support Saturday June 14th from 4-5pm pm at the intersection of West Lake Drive and Star Island Drive, Montauk, NY. For more information on the rally, please contact Kathryn at kkullberg@humanesociety.org.
For details on Wendy's coverage location at the Shark Tournament pls. email Wendy or contact us at

718-748-0324.

We look forward to your support - this is more important for the ocean and for our futures than most people will ever know. We are causing irrepairable harm that will be felt for generations to come.

More info:

• Humane Society on Shark Tournaments

• Star Island Yacht Club Shark Tournament - Associated Press

• Declaration, Manifesto for Immediate Worldwide Shark Conservation Actions

Dear members, buddies, don´t turn your back on this, I´m sure all of you know that Sharks are so important in the marine ecosystem, I don´t want to imagine our Oceans without them. Tell the world, friends, Media press, everyone so we can give our support.

LET´S SAY NO, STOP KILLING AND FILING POCKETS WITH SHARK FINNING COVERED LIKE A ROMAN AGE TOURNAMENT.

Lizbeth Maria Aguirre
I´M A DIVER
Creator
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11692617157