Artist:  Seamus Vaughan

original oil painting courtesy of Brian Manning

Sharks are the beautiful lions and tigers of the deep,
but have you ever cared to here them weep?
Are they really the man-eating carnivores we’re taught about in Jaws?
Or are they different, sensitive and have their own occasional flaws?
Maybe you don’t know this, but millions are being slaughtered.
Due to a vicious demand for their fins, that isn’t wanting to be altered.
Did you know that their fins are used in a “special” kind of food?
And that the fins are only parts of the bodies that are used?
This type of food is called soup, and it’s supposed to be a delicacy,
But many greedy, selfish men are killing these creatures so that they can be used even in a pharmacy.
Some people around the world believe that sharks are healthy and strong and maybe that if they took pills of shark bone, they would be defined as the sharks are known.
But as I said that is what some people think, which does not mean it’s true,
and what they do not understand is that they are causing an effect that could eventually kill them too.
As more and more sharks are being killed,
It’s as if the cup of life that God gave us is being spilled.
Sharks are basically the only thing that is helping us stay alive.
The sharks eat the fish that eat the plankton that consume carbon dioxide.
which makes oxygen to help us stay alive.
So as you can see,
the trees aren’t the only thing helping us to breathe.
Why are there different campaigns to save elephants, pandas, seals, whales, and turtles,
and there are none to save the sharks?
Is it because shark saving is just a job to big and scary to start?
I hope my poem has opened your eyes, and maybe has taken you by surprise.
And I also hope that you will watch a documentary,
that has definitely inspired me.
This brilliant film is called Sharkwater,
and I hope and pray you will watch this and let your fear of sharks be altered.

Careena - 14 years old

Copyrighted January 12, 2011

This piece is a humble tribute to Rob Stewart’s shocking documentary “Shark Water”. This documentary has win 31 international awards. It is going against all what the Medias have told us about the sharks. A must see for everyone.

It was a live performance at Edmundston en musique 2010. The first part is played on a 7 string neck thru custom MF bass & the second part with a 5 string custom MF bass. Visit this luthier website at http://www.mf.qc.ca

The drum part is handled by a great friend of mine: Andre Ouellet. We performed together with Light Force.

Global Ocean is a London-based charity established in 2006 to heighten public awareness about the plight of marine life and to generate funds for conservation programmes around the world.

We wish to congratulate the Sharkwater team for creating such a wonderful film, whilst raising awareness on a key issue and highlighting the need for change.  We are enthused by the success and clear-cut message portrayed in Sharkwater about shark-finning and believe that films like this are crucial to saving species in peril.

We are currently looking for ways to help protect sharks from the fishing onslaught they receive all over the world, and we are appalled that 100 million sharks are still being slaughtered each year.

To help generate awareness Global Ocean works in other creative mediums and produces, for example, eco-arts plastic workshops to heighten awareness about the problem of plastics entering the marine and human food chains.

As consumers we can act together to buy products which do not harm our ocean and ourselves.  For details on our campaigns and how you can get involved visit our website at: www.globalocean.org.uk

Thank you Ted for such a poignant e-mail …

Hello,
My name is Ted Kao and I’m of Taiwanese decent and currently reside in San Francisco.  Unfortunately, I’d have to admit that I’ve eaten my share of shark fin soup over the course of my lifetime.  Heck, the plan was, the bigger the fin, the better the soup (ie - cost more money so therefore, its a better meal).  As I reached adulthood, I finally took up a sport that I’ve always wanted to try, Scuba Diving.   Since I learned to Scuba Dive 3 years ago and had my first child about the same time, I began to see sharks in a different light.  I’ve seen plenty of sharks in my diving experience and found that they are gentle, curious animals that really have no interest in us.   I began to watch and learn about many of the factors that impact these great and beautiful animals.  I’m afraid that my time left to see a whale shark in the wild may be all but closing and my children’s ability to see any sharks in the wild may be gone.  I think it may be too late to impact the current generation of 50+ year old asians in our quest to remove shark finning.   I believe that 2 events will truly impact the sustainability of sharks in our oceans.  1. There needs to be significant economic improvement to the 3rd world countries from which our sharks are most abundant.   While education helps, asking people who’s day to day meal tickets comes from finning to stop doing it won’t really work.   2.  Education of those Asian teens and adults who are more open to change may decrease the number of individuals who eat the fins.   Remember, as China becomes more prosperous, the number of consumers will actually increase over the next 30 years unless we get to the youth now.
I’d like to thank you for your video and continuing my education of this terrible practice.    I’ve created a facebook page recently that will hopefully gain some traction among young adults called Asians for Sharks that asks its members to give up eating shark fin.  I hope you will share it with your members.

Good Morning Friends,

I need your help please! I am trying to stop the needless shark killing here in my home town. Although this has happened many times at this marina, it was the first time I was in town to catch it, thank god!

Please click here and vote for the video so this needless killing of an endangered scalloped hammerhead shark, will have more impact! If enough people vote it may go to national news which means more support for stopping the needless slaughter of these beautiful creatures that are so vital to the health of our oceans!

Feel free to post this everywhere! Below is the actual story with images! Thank you for your help!

At this moment I am very sad to say that the fisherman that did this will not be penalized in anyway, because of a interpretation of the law that makes no sense to me what so ever! If you need to reach me, email is best!  Many of you know me very well and know that because I live at sea, swimming with these beautiful creatures everyday year round, I see this the horrific act the same way most people would look at your pet dog, left on a cart to die and bake in the sun, as if no one gives a dam! I do give a dam and I hope you do to! Please make this count and make a difference! This type of behavior infuriates me and needs to be stopped! Thanks so much for your help!

Save The Sharks,

Jim

Jim Abernethy’s Scuba Adventures, Inc

Read the rest of this entry »

The goal of this contest is to create a T-Shirt with a PANGAEA ACT PROJECT THEME. A secondary goal is to make it not only meaningful but stylish so that visitors to the YEP community and mikehorn.com will want to wear them to help promote, sell and create awareness for the project. The concept could be something as simple as designing a cool looking image for selling and proceeds will be donated for a future shark project.

We now want to put the challenge to you. The top design contenders will have their designs posted and displayed for all to see. There will be a vote on the community and the winning design will be printed up and carried by our online store.

Inspired by an internationally acclaimed documentary, two Mills College undergraduates organized a screening of “Sharkwater” as part of Earth Week to spread awareness to the campus community about shark finning, the killing of sharks for their fins.

Seniors Tarra La Valley and Emma Giboney’s newly created Environmental Studies club seeks to rally Mills women to petition the selling of shark cartilage products in local health food stores, which contributes to an estimated 100 million sharks that are killed annually for their fins.

To read the full story click here.

Thank you Mills College.