OUGD403- Brief 4: Online Research

http://www.psfk.com/2013/10/shark-coffins.html/shark2

"Shark fin soup may be a worldwide delicacy, but shark fishing is a worldwide scourge. Since the only desirable part of the animal — its fins — comprise just 2% of its body weight, fishermen need to kill over 73 million sharks per year to keep up with demand, and eliminating so many large predators can be detrimental to the world’s ocean ecosystems. And all for small bowls of soup.

So, in collaboration with China’s International Fund for Animal Welfare — one of the country’s largest environmental awareness organizations — Y&R Shanghai introduced a campaign to draw attention to the problem of shark overfishing. The public exhibits feature shark-sized coffins with fins protruding sinisterly, while small plaques nearby offer an explanation and ask visitors to sign a petition pledging to stop eating the animals. "

This powerful campaign has been successful so far as it has gained 50,000 signatures. Rather than using graphic images of sharks fins being cut they have used a coffin which signifies death to make the viewer think about the subject matter and by reading the facts they begin to understand the seriousness of the campaign and cause. 

Ecosystems can also be affected by the lack of sharks due to over population of other species. As predators they are at the top of the food chain and are vital to maintaining stable sea/marine life.

http://teacheratsea.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/marine-food-chain-from-encyclopedia-britannica.jpg

"Sharks have evolved in a tight inter-dependency with their ecosystem. They tend to eat very efficiently, going after the old, sick, or slower fish in a population that they prey upon, keeping that population healthier. Sharks groom many populations of marine life to the right size so that those prey species don’t cause harm to the ecosystem by becoming too populous. The ocean ecosystem is made up of very intricate food webs.  Sharks are at the top of these webs and are considered by scientists to be “keystone” species, meaning that removing them causes the whole structure to collapse.  For this reason, the prospect of a food chain minus its apex predators may mean the end of the line for many more species.  A number of scientific studies demonstrate that depletion of sharks results in the loss of commercially important fish and shellfish species down the food chain, including key fisheries such as tuna, that maintain the health of coral reefs."

https://www.sharksavers.org/en/education/the-value-of-sharks/sharks-role-in-the-ocean/

Through further research I have also discovered that shark fishing in other countries has affected other species such as dolphins.

"The demand for shark fins as a pricey delicacy in China and other Asian countries has been devastating enough for shark populations, but a new investigation in Peru reveals that it’s been devastating for dolphins as well. At least 15,000 dolphins are killed off the coast of Peru each year by fisherman who use them as shark bait, according to  watchdog group Asociacion Mundo Azul after a months-long investigation."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2013/10/22/_15_000_dolphins_illegally_killed_each_year_in_peru_as_shark_bait.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

China is also not the only culprit of shark finning, these countries have loose laws around the cutting of fins on sharks:

American Samoa
Argentina
Australia (most States & Territories)
Brazil
Canada
Cape Verde
Colombia
Costa Rica
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador

European Union
India
Mexico
Namibia
Nicaragua
Oman
Panama
Seychelles (foreign vessels only)
South Africa (in national waters only)
Spain
United States

http://www.seashepherd.org/operation-requiem/is-shark-finning-illegal.html

This is a campaign for Singapore and Hongkong on the "Shark Savers" website which includes photographs of many famous celebrities known from both cities to promote shark conservation and stop people from buying and eating soup which contains shark fin. The celebrities used within these campaigns are vital to the message being transferred to people about the importance of stopping sharks becoming extinct. 

"Reducing demand for shark fin soup is the most important thing we can do to protect sharks from being driven to extinction. This demand has created the unsustainable, virtually unrestrained killing of sharks. Tens of millions of sharks a year are killed for the shark fin trade.

A survey conducted by our PR agency Grayling in Singapore confirmed findings of a 2011 Bloom study in Hong Kong indicating a significant number of people in Chinese communities are aware of the problems associated with shark fin soup. They want to stop or curtail their consumption. But our study also found that despite their willingness to stop eating shark’s fin soup, they continue to eat and even serve it because of the strong social pressure to do so. More cultural reinforcement is necessary to show that now is the time to act on your convictions and reject shark fin soup."

https://www.sharksavers.org/en/our-programs/i-m-finished-with-fins/about

Another reason that it is much harder to campaign against the killing of sharks is that people are scared of them and cannot form an emotional attachment unlike mammals who are extinct and can gain sponsors through looking "cute". Greenpeace posted a report in August 2013 about the shark finning within New Zealand. 

"There’s nothing defensible about shark finning. It’s the marine equivalent of the poachers who kill rhinos to hack off their horns or kill elephants to hack off their tusks. It’s not dissimilar to killing bears or tigers for spurious ‘traditional’ cures either. But it happens out at sea, to animals which don’t have big brown eyes, and which aren’t usually touted as cuddly toys or ‘adoptable’. They rarely win public polls on favourite animals, yet they fill column inches every silly scaremongering summer season in the tabloids.

Sure, some shark-human encounters don’t go well for the humans, but that’s equally true of lions and tigers and bears. Mutual respect goes a long way when it comes to dealing with large predators."

Simply by typing "shark" into google images, varied amounts of photographs cropped at these angles do appear. Sadly, not only photographers but also films do have an affect on the way sharks are perceived as a species. The film Jaws is a clear example of how fear can be used to create entertainment but also confirm these ideologies people have of sharks, that they are dangerous killers who attack unprovoked. 

"Each year there are about 50 to 70 confirmed shark attacks and 5 to 15 shark-attack fatalities around the world. The numbers have risen over the past several decades but not because sharks are more aggressive: Humans have simply taken to coastal waters in increasing numbers."

"Over 375 shark species have been identified, but only about a dozen are considered particularly dangerous. Three species are responsible for most human attacks: great white (Carcharodon carcharias), tiger(Galeocerdo cuvier), and bull (Carcharhinus leucas) sharks."

"While sharks kill fewer than 20 people a year, their own numbers suffer greatly at human hands. Between 20 and 100 million sharks die each year due to fishing activity, according to data from the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File. The organization estimates that some shark populations have plummeted 30 to 50 percent."

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2005/06/0613_050613_sharkfacts.html

Here are a few examples of films which include sharks and dominant ideologies that sharks are highly aggressive and deadly animals.

"When the film Jaws (1975), about a rogue shark that terrorised a small seaside island community was released, it had an unprecedented paranoia effect on its audience that became entrenched into the psyche of bathers around the world; a fear that media hyperbole exploited. At the same time, the film was also responsible for a surge in scientific interest in sharks and the media responded by giving more attention to the important role of sharks in the marine ecology. In the long term, social perceptions of sharks, changed from fear to conservation, influencing local, national and international government conservation and management policies. Nevertheless, there persists the initial media frenzy after any shark attack and Jaws remains the touchstone for media reporting."

http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/9471/

Even in finding nemo and shark tale which are films with a target audience of children portray sharks to be highly aggressive and scary however in some parts of the film they do break dominant ideologies and portray some of the characters as friendly, such as in finding nemo there is a quote which states "fish are friends, not food" and also in shark tale  there is a shark which is vegetarian. 

http://i.imgur.com/5a1CIop.jpg

"The process of shark finning is as cruel as it is wasteful.  Captured at sea and hauled on deck, sharks are often still alive when their fins are hacked off.  Because shark meat is not considered as valuable as shark fin, the maimed animals are tossed overboard to drown or bleed to death, with 98% of the shark going to waste."

http://www.wildaid.org/sharks

The way in which sharks are killed for their fins is entirely inhumane and can be compared to how Elephants, Rhinos and other animals are killed for small parts of their body such as ivory, and all for human greed. The rest of a shark's body is not used for meat and is discarded into the sea for them to die in an inhuman way, these sharks can also be eaten by other sharks and with no fins cannot swim away they are defenceless.

BLACKFISH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ou5DqfkZ8

"Notorious killer whale Tilikum is responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including a top killer whale trainer. Blackfish shows the sometimes devastating consequences of keeping such intelligent and sentient creatures in captivity. 

BLACKFISH tells the story of Tilikum, a notoriously aggressive orca that killed three people while in captivity. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite uses shocking footage and emotional interviews to present a convincing case against keeping these wild animals for human entertainment. "

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2545118/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

This links to the shark finning debate because both of the stories include devastating affects of human intervention with a powerful species. 

http://shimworld.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/save-the-sharks-save-the-world-stop-shark-finning/

This image plays on the ideologies that humans know of sharks being aggressive and high in the food chain. This poster portrays the idea that humans are disrupting the food chain and destroying it by killing sharks and becoming the predator. 

After my initial research online I began asking people on facebook and on blogging websites their opinions on shark finning, here were some of the replies:

"Okay so, my understanding of this is that the sharks are fished out, have their fins cut off

 for one reason or another. Then they are thrown back in, barely alive, to die or be eaten by

 other predators. I’m not really sure on the reason why people would want sharks fins. But 

I’m sure there must be profit and money involved.

I think it’s vile! Why would you do that to an animal? Surely this must be illegal.

I read that they are often thrown back into the sea and left to die. Think about that poor 

animal suffering, bleeding to death, barely alive and probably being attacked by other 

sharks. And in all honesty struggling to get away from its attackers.

I’ve been hearing a lot about animal cruelty recently. I watched the Blackfish documentary 

online a few days ago. And it makes me sick to think those killer whales were and still are 

being kept and treated in such a poor way/conditions."

"The practice of removing sharks fins from their bodies.. disgusting, I hate capitalism"

"Sharks are really scary, but they do not deserve to be used for selfish purposes, It 

absolutely disgusts me as a human being to be in the same family as those who harm 

these creatures"

"Inhumane. Disgusting. Sadistic"

"I think it's horrendous, any form of animal abuse is revolting and it should be stopped"

Out of all the replies I received I have only mentioned a few because many were repetitive 

with using the words "disgusting" and other phrases. However the amount of replies I did 

receive which stated "what's shark finning?" was surprising and proves that more 

campaigns and conservation should be created to educate people.