Urgent - Hawaii Shark Fin Bill Needs a Push

If you have some time in your busy schedule over the next two days please add your voice to excellent efforts in Hawaii to help conserve sharks with a new bill SB2169:

Hello everyone,

For some reason the Representative that is the chair of our LAST
committee, Riki Karamatsu, is unresponsive and hasn't scheduled a hearing for our shark finning bill.

If you have the time today or tomorrow, please take a minute and send a message/call to to urge him to hear SB2169.

We have come so far with this bill and I can't believe it is stuck now! Very frustrating.

Tell him how important this is for Hawaii, but also the rest of the US/world.

Tell him that the desire for people to eat shark fin soup should not
override the decision to pass this bill. A delicacy should not cause
the destruction of the ocean... etc

Express yourself as strongly as you can and if you are from Hawaii
make sure you let him know that too.

We have been sending messages and have been stopping by his office. We
have given him photos, letters and videos.

Apparently he needs more pressure to be convinced. I think there are a couple of member in the House that really like to eat their shark fin soup that may have asked him to not hear the bill.

I will go to the capitol this afternoon to park myself outside his
office until he speaks to me.

Here is his info:

Jon Riki Karamatsu
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
phone 808-586-8490; fax 808-586-8494
E-mail repkaramatsu@Capitol.hawaii.gov

thank you
Stefanie

Goblin girl in a goblin shark accident!

Today blood was flowing in my office today. MY blood!




(If you look carefully, you will see blood stains on my dress!)

Three years ago I sent out the - for me - earth rocking news about a live goblin shark kept in captivity in Japan, to my fellow shark friends. I immediately got the reply from my friend Guzman in the Basque country "funny you write to me now about this, because only yesterday I got a specimen from a fisherman". The shark was a caught in the Bay of Biscay on the 9th of February 2007. It's an immature male, ca 115 cm long. I replied to Guzman and told him that the shark was mine! The shark was then put in a freezer and forgotten until last summer when Guzman found it again. He put it in formalin and we started to check for transportation. Yesterday he asked me to confirm the delivery address to my office and today I got an e-mail that I should confirm to him when it arrived. Only half an hour later I was called to the reception of my office, where a tube was waiting for me!




I was of course very eager to see it. Also, it is now wrapped in formalin drenched paper and plastic so I will soon have to find a suitable container and put it in alcohol. Because of the stench, I went out on a balcony and started to unwrap it. Suddenly I felt a sting in my finger and blood was flowing. My finger had got snugged on one of the needle sharp teeth. They are just like a fishing hook. I had to stop the bleeding before I was ruining the shark so I went to the bathroom to put my finger under cold water. When I pulled off the tight rubber glove I was wearing, blood and water sprayed over the whole room, over my nice dress, me... Everywhere! I felt like Carrie from the movie with the same name. I'm lucky my colleagues are used to me, but I've never looked like this in my office before. And it's usually fish blood.





Since it wouldn't stop bleeding my colleague put on a big bandage. I wonder if I will get a scar... Maybe a first inflicted from a goblin shark? Although dead...

Ok, you are allowed to laugh now!