Saturday, October 30, 2010

Edward Dorson - Shark and Awe

Want to know the current status of the U.S. Shark Conservation Act sitting in Congress?

Underwater photographer Edward Dorson summarises this bills remarkable voyage through the US Senate and it's sad state of affairs in today's Huff Post.

Edward Dorson - an eloquent and passionate voice for the oceans, and for sharks:

The threat to sharks from finning and to a planet that requires their continued existence isn't half-baked ideology -- it's empirical fact. Studies are consistently revealing that sharks, as apex predators, are essential to regulate species abundance and distribution to maintain healthy oceans. Yet the world's sharks are being slaughtered at an unsustainable rate of 3 per second (estimated at 100 million annually). After capture, shark finners hack off the fins (worth up to $300 a pound) and the less valuable mutilated shark is tossed back to sink and slowly die. This travesty was acted on by our lawmakers a decade ago with the U.S. Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000, a legislative milestone that made it illegal to have fins aboard a U.S. registered vessel without the corresponding shark carcasses.

Complete Post.