Victims fight for sharks
Yesterday a group of nine advocates were in Washington D.C. to promote the Shark Conservation Act — a piece of legislation that would strengthen the ban on the practice of "shark finning" and protect sharks around the world.
And this isn’t your run-of-the-mill lobby group, either. Its members are all victims of shark attacks.
The US Bill they are lending their support to is called the Shark Conservation Act of 2009. It’s already passed a House of Representatives vote and, if enacted, would strengthen a ban on a practice called "finning," in which a shark’s fins are cut off onboard a fishing vessel and the shark is thrown back overboard, in U.S. waters.
Finning itself is already illegal under U.S. law, but "enforcement is complex and there is room for cheating said a spokesperson for the Humane Society of the United States. "This legislation closes a loophole that currently permits a vessel to transport fins obtained illegally as long as the sharks were not finned aboard that vessel."
According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), over 30% of shark and ray species that live in the open ocean are threatened, some as a result of fishing for their meat (shark fin soup, in particular, is a big offender), others as bycatch (the sharks are sometimes caught in fishermen’s nets accidentally).
If the sharks — an apex predator — continue to decline, entire ecosystems could suffer.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Al Brenneka, who lost an arm in a shark attack, said "Who should speak up for the sharks better than the people that the sharks have spoken to themselves? "
Note :: The UK still issues licences for finning, the majority of which are let by the Scottish Government.
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