In Honor of Shark Week - Some Shark Conservation
Shark Week 2009, one of the Discovery Channel's most popular annual features, is wrapping up. Those of us who grew up during "The Jaws Years" will probably always view these muscular creatures with a healthy dose of fear, but these days sharks also have a healthy and active fan club.
Several organizations, like Ocean Conservancy and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, hope to capitalize on the cultural phenomenon of Shark Week and draw attention to the plight of sharks around the world.
Every year millions of sharks are killed by "shark finning" -- fishermen slice off their fins and throw the bleeding carcases back into the sea, where the helpless, maimed sharks bleed to death, starve, drown or are eaten by other fish. The majority of the fins are used in shark fin soup, a delicacy in Asian cultures.
The Shark Conservation Act of 2009 recently passed the House of Representatives, and now it goes to the U.S. Senate for a final vote. This legislation closes a loophole that allows ships to transport illegally acquired shark fins, as long as the ship didn't harvest them. It also asks the Secretary of Commerce to name names on countries that don't have similar conservation laws.
The Monterey Aquarium set up an online form to make it easy for the big Shark Fan Club to contact their Senators and encourage them to vote in favor of the act. To support sharks, go to the Monterey Aquarium Take Action page and complete the online form -- it takes two seconds.
And now, if you have two more seconds (and you know you do, it's Friday afternoon) go sign the Ocean Conservancy's petition to end global shark finning.
A final message to those of you heading out for an end of summer weekend at the beach, don't worry ... really ... it's safe to go in the water!
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