Thousands of people gathered TODAY in Australia to support our sharks. A 19-YEAR-OLD woman was arrested early this morning after chaining herself to a Department of Fisheries vessel in protest of the State Government’s shark cull.
The people are protesting Australian’s government decision to CULL sharks after a few fatal incidents last year.
8,000 people joined in Perth, 3,000 in Sydney and thousands at other smaller rallies across the county. Two tiger sharks were culled this week bringing an uproar of disgust amongst environmentalists and OCEAN lovers. Protests were scheduled all across the country february 1st 2013
Hawaii also suffered from two fatal shark incidents last year. Both on Wailea, Maui to be exact, but our authorities decided that culling was not the answer and educating the public was a better choice.
While there is no way to eliminate risk of an unwanted shark encounter, people will be safer if they know which behaviors are riskier than others.
A public education campaign (including but not limited to talking with locals and signs with information for tourists) would help with this. Public education is by far the most effective way to make people safer.
The wold has lost 80% of all sharks… they have gone inside a bowl of soup or in to dietary supplements and cosmetics. This is the reason why we need you to ACTIVATE and help as much as you can.
Do not buy shake fin soup, do not buy shark meat, do not buy dietary supplements that contain sharks liver or shark cartilage. Your choices do matter.
Mahalo AUSTRALIA for showing how much you do LOVE sharks and how far you are willing to go to stop the culling.
Aloha
~Oriana
Photography by David “Whysharksmatter” Shiftman and Rae Marie Threnoworth.