A Call to Action...

I've pilfered this off my other blog because it fits right in with my whole mission of getting into the diving profession. At the moment, the passions in my life are become more and more focussed on the sea and helping to fix the mess we've made of it...

Hey there faithfull followers,

Today's post is of a more somber note. Please watch the video posted below. Do not turn it off when it turns your stomach. Do not look away, close your eyes or ignore what you are seeing. This is a massacre on a global scale that needs the world to open up their eyes and do something. We can all sit back and say "well it's not my culture so I don't have a right to say anything" or "well I don't eat it so it's not my problem" but the fact is that it is your problem, it is all of our problem. The practice of shark finning is inexcusable. The fact is that shark's fin is tasteless, it adds nothing to the food it is added to. Simple tradition and cultural ignorance has led ot the massacre of a species which due to media representation and cultural ignorance is completely misunderstood. We cannot continue to kill sharks without even the most basic sense of what is right or wrong. These pictures and so many others make me cry...no weep but cry out loud. How dare we be so full of ourselves, so egotistal, so high and mighty that we think that we can do this and it's ok. Every single one of us should be ashamed that we either take part in this shocking practice or that we do nothing about it. Chinatown in my home city  of Vancouver has shark's fin restaurants as does probably every Chinatown in every country that my readers come from. It is only with your help and your intervention that we can begin to change the way people think. We need to start with the youth and make them understand the barbarism of this tradition so that they can begin to change it and pass these new understandings on to their children. It is in the hands of the young that the lives of these helpless creatures lie. 

There are many sites that can steer you in the right direction if you want to help, here are only a few:
 http://www.antisharkfinning.com/
http://www.stopsharkfinning.net/campaigns.htm
http://www.sharksavers.org/index.php
http://www.facebook.com/antisharkfinning
http://www.seashepherd.org/sharks/shark-finning.html

There are a million more. It's up to us to stop this. People need to be educated to understand the barbarism that they are supporting. The family in the shark's fin restaurant in the video clip sums is all up...they don't think about where the fins come from and they don't care. But maybe, just maybe if they saw the practices that their 150$ dinner was supporting they might change their minds.

I beg of all my readers to please take up this cause. Sharks have survived millions of years of evolution, ice ages and mass global extinctions and are now on the verge of completely dissappearing because of human greed and ignorance. We do not have the right to hold the future of a species in our hands. Please fight for their rights because they cannot.

Cheers from a place of sadness and shame
J