Attack Victims Speak Up For Sharks
15 July 2009
by Anai Rhoads
AnaiRhoads.org -- Nine shark attack victims from across the nation are advocating a ban on shark finning in U.S. waters.
Animal welfare groups and organisations are encouraging Congress to pass the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 (S. 850/H.R. 81), which would not only strengthen the ban on shark finning, but will also encourage shark conservation programmes around the world.
A report released in June by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) expressed an urgent need to put an end to shark fishing worldwide. The report stated that 35 out of 64 known pelagic shark and related ray species are currently facing a threatened, or near threatened, extinction worldwide. The shark fin trade is the direct cause of their endangerment, since shark fins are highly sought after in the Asian market.
"We need Congressional action to further shark conservation and strengthen the U.S. shark finning ban," said Matt Rand, director of the Pew Environment Group's Global Shark Conservation Campaign. "If we don't act now, too many shark species will face extinction."
The IUCN report included two species of thresher sharks, basking sharks, great whites, shortfin and longfin makos, porbeagles, oceanic whitetip sharks, dusky sharks, sandbar sharks, and three species of hammerheads.
The nine men and women from New York to California spoke up for S.850/H.R. 81, despite having such close encounters with the mammals.
George Burgess, whose work at the Florida Museum of Natural History has highlighted the paucity of shark attacks in the world stated, "You are more likely to be killed by lightning than a shark. If only the sharks were so lucky. Up to 73 million sharks are killed around the world annually. In contrast, only a handful of people die every year from the 50-70 shark attacks worldwide."
Al Brenneka, who lost his arm after being bitten while surfing in Del Ray Beach, Florida, in 1976 said, "The media makes sharks out to be monsters, some people make them out to be huggable little creatures, but neither is completely true." Brenneka now runs a shark attack survivors network and also tags and releases sharks for research.
"The repercussions from overfishing sharks are severe; it is critical to look at the big picture," said Robyne Knutson of Santa Cruz, California, an artist who was bitten in the leg off the Maui shore in 1999.
"They're at the top of the food chain and everything else depends on them," said Mike Coots, who lost a leg to a shark while surfing off the Hawaiian island of Kuai in 1997. Coots still resides in Kuai and now surfs with a prosthesis.
"I don't want to swim around and play with them, but just because you don't like them doesn't mean you want to see them exterminated," said Charles Anderson of Summerdale, Alabama. Anderson was bitten in the arm in 2000 at Gulf Shores in Alabama while training for a triathlon. After losing his arm, Anderson has gone on to finish 17 triathlons.
"Sharks have evolved over 400 million years to become an 'apex predator' in the marine ecosystem, yet our fears help paint a grave picture for their future. It's time to replace fear with understanding and action, just as we have for lions and other apex predators," said Debbie Salamone, an Orlando, Florida resident and communications manager at the Pew Environment Group who was bitten by a shark at the Cape Canaveral National Seashore in east Central Florida in 2004.
In March, the House unanimously passed the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 (S. 850/H.R. 81), which was introduced by Senator John Kerry (D-MA). S. 850/H.R. 81 would require that all sharks be landed with their fins naturally attached, promote the conservation of sharks internationally and eliminate loopholes and strengthen enforcement in the current U.S. shark-finning law.
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