Are you paying attention Sea Shepherd, Shark Angels and United Conservationists?
Yeah, you can stop your collective conservation fog machines for just one second here because this is important.
Numbers matter in the shark conservation game and when you quote 70-80-90% of all shark species facing extinction, or when you try and get New Yorkers to sign a petition that suggests the worlds entire oxygen supply is somehow hinged on the continuation of all shark species you make the conservation world as a whole looks like a bunch of rank amateurs playing at conservation for reasons that boggle the imagination.
100 million sharks killed for their fins? You still peddling that garbage? Seriously?
Have you read this?
What started with a dubious shark movie and some gal with a pizza box lid in South Africa that said, "Save the Sharks" written in lipstick, has metastasized into media fog factory of pulled from the arse conservation misquotes lead by some pretty awful street corner doom criers.
But back to Dr Graham, read her article in the NY Times today and start writing numbers as fast as you can. 17% of 1,200 species of the worlds sharks threatened, oxygen has nothing to do with sharks, no mention of the 100 million sharks killed each year for their fins, and yes we can reverse the declines.
This is how you do shark conservation media folks.
You can try and scare the general populace into signing your petitions and donating money to your various shark causes but the real conservation numbers are stark enough. Real facts are in fact quite actionable without the added made up conservation fantasy that far too many are peddling out there.
Thanks Dr.Graham.
