Open Letter to the B.C. Government


Sadly, the Government of Canada has voted to support the shark finning business. So I, and many other shark advocates in British Columbia are demanding a total ban on shark fins in the province. This is an open letter I have just sent to the members of the B.C. Government asking that they act swiftly to block shark fins at the B.C. coast.

Dear Honourable Members, 

Given the federal decision to support the shark finning business, we are writing to urge you and your government to ban the importation of shark fins into Canada via its west coast, and make it illegal to import, export, trade, possess or distribute shark fins. By halting this province’s contribution to the crisis, you will broadcast the strong message that British Columbia refuses to play a role in driving so many species of sharks to extinction.
The destruction of endangered species cannot be acceptable under any pretext. Further, in slaughtering sharks in incalculable numbers on the coast of every country with a tropical or temperate coastline regardless of legal protections, and including countries in which sharks are held sacred, the shark fin business shows a total lack of respect for other cultures. The monetary value is so high that much of the trade is in criminal hands, and has resulted in threats, intimidation and murder, especially of journalists and researchers.
Shark fin soup is a vanity dish: its cost is a supposed measure of the wealth of the buyer and his ostentatious largesse to give and receive honour, with its alleged magical properties an excuse for consumption. But in a protein starved world, the waste represented by cutting off only 3 percent of each of tens of millions of animals for consumption and discarding the rest, is indefensible. 
An oceanic crisis has been precipitated by this practice. Shark populations world-wide have plummeted by 90 percent, with some populations at 1% of pre-1985 levels. The decline is comparable to the loss of buffalo from the great plains two hundred years ago, but on a global scale. The elimination of the top predators from all oceans will ultimately be reflected in comparable ecological upheavals world-wide; some are already apparent.
Every second at least three sharks are finned for shark fin soup—the latest estimate is between 63 and 273 million sharks slaughtered annually, an unsustainable massacre that is driving one third of about one thousand shark and ray species into extinction.
In recognition of this immense problem, California, Oregon, and Washington states have made it illegal to trade, possess, or distribute shark fins. So we respectfully ask that you act swiftly to block shark fins from entering the continent via British Columbia, and declare a total ban on the importation, exportation,  possession and trade of shark fins in the province.

Please feel free to share and send it on!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Letter to the Discovery Network

Image
To the Discovery Network: Members of our Internet shark discussion forum, SHARK-L, have been asked by your marketing representatives to help promote your famous Shark Week sequence. This letter, signed by list members and friends, is our formal response to the request from your grass roots agency, New Media Strategies, for our support of the programming. How can we support Discovery Channel when we are fighting for shark conservation, and its biggest obstacle is the monster image given to sharks by the media, including Shark Week programs? Further, some of us who have been directly involved in the production of your documentaries feel disgusted at the way that our interviews were censored and our words twisted around. Our group is comprised of scientists, researchers, educators, media companies, and many NGO's, lobbyists and others. In aggregate we represent a strong network of influence that can help or hurt the efforts of any Shark related programming or initiatives. In...
Read more

On the gestation period of the blackfin reef shark, Carcharhinus melanopterus in waters off Moorea, French Polynesia

Image
Originally published in the Journal "Marine Biology" at: http://link.springer.de   Abstract Underwater visual and photographic observations, over a four year period, monitored the presence of mating wounds on female Carcharhinus melanopterus . Mating begins in November and continues until the end of March as each female follows her own temporal cycle. Correspondingly, parturition begins in September and continues until January. Each female again mates 1.5 to 2.5 months after parturition, thus completing an annual reproductive cycle. The gestation period is 286 to 305 days, with slight individual differences. All resident sharks under observation followed this pattern. Evidence of reproductive events presented by transient females conformed with the pattern of the residents. Introduction The few studies postulating a gestation period for the reef blackfin shark Carcharhinus melanopterus have varied greatly in their conclusions. Based on an examin...
Read more

SHARKS DON'T BITE like we do

Image
Though sharks have gained a mythical reputation for being biters, their behaviour in nature is the opposite of what we would expect from the vicious animals depicted in the media. I had many opportunities to observe sharks under circumstances in which I expected them to bite, as a dog, cat, horse, or bird would tend to do. Yet they did not.  All other species, wild and tame, with whom I had the intimacy I shared with sharks, had bitten me sooner or later, either by accident or in a fit of pique; even my pet dog sometimes grabs my hand in her teeth along with the offered cookie.  Further, while the blackfin reef sharks I knew enjoyed roaming with favourite companions, I never saw them fighting with each other. They had friends but no enemies ! For years people had told me, and I half believed myself, that one evening I would be bitten and would bleed to death, or faint and drown. Since I was alone far from shore as night was falling, I could expect no one to...
Read more