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Loading...How Can You Save Sharks? Swim With Them!
In Semporna, Malaysia, the shark hunt is nearing a dangerous point. Conservationists have a small window of time to develop the proposed Semporna Shark Sanctuary before it’s not only sharks that disappear, but sustainable jobs, solutions to poverty and an ocean biodiversity kept in check by the captain of the underwater food chain.
The 63 species of shark and 68 species of ray drifting through Semporna’s waters are not exactly damsels in distress. Sharks can pay their own conservation fees — or at least they could if they weren’t being hunted to the brink of extinction by the shark fin soup industry. Sharks generated 192 million dollars last year thanks to an increasingly popular dive tourism, or, swimming with sharks. In fact, the estimated value of one shark throughout its lifetime is 815,000 US dollars. Contrast this number with the value of a dead shark that will be sold for its fin, a process that only generates an estimated 100 U.S. dollars. Based on these numbers, a comprehensive financing plan will accompany the Semporna Shark Sanctuary to make sure the sanctuary is successfully funded by none other than the toothy predator itself.
Shark fin soup has no nutritional value. It has been linked to mercury poisoning, Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative brain diseases.
Fisheries hunting sharks for the coveted menu item are killing off the very species that employs them. Many sharks like the Scalloped Hammerhead have declined by up to 90 percent — loudly signaling that shark hunting just isn’t a sustainable job option for the poverty-stricken regions that need long-term employment. Dive tourism can replace the bloody day-job of shark hunting while also saving shark species and the ocean that depends on them.
The shark sanctuary will cover 83 islands which include 1,001 dive sites to protect an optimal amount of sharks and marine life. A crucial state-wide shark fishing ban has also been in the works for years. The shark-hunting ban is necessary to ensure the Semporna Shark Sanctuary reaches its full potential — but politicians are still deliberating on how to make both the ban and the sanctuary a reality.
Local and international non-government organizations (NGOs), government bodies and local communities largely support the Semporna Shark Sanctuary Project. The problem is, they have been supporting the plan since the Borneo Conservancy proposed it several years ago and, as conservationists keep explaining: the sharks can’t wait.
The Semporna region is one of the few areas in the world where a devastating shark decline is still preventable, but this won’t be true for long. In the very near future, even Semporna’s shark species will have declined so severely that they cannot be saved.
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Read more: dive tourism, hammerhead, malaysia, ocean biodiversity, ocean ecosystem, oceans, reef fishing, Semporna Shark Sanctuary, shark conservation, shark fin soup, shark. shark sanctuary
Photo Credit: thinkstock
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Recent Comments from Causes
Robert K, so very true...the contamination you mentioned would be long lasting…perhaps even resulting…
Wow...
Ron G, “AND GOD CREATED SCIENCE !” LMAO. No wonder there’s so much unethical behavior…
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74 comments
+ add your ownModern Asia is the most immoral, criminal selfish, corrupt group of nations on earth, and that's saying something considering most of the rest have monstrous criminal practices.
Saving sharks is the right thing to do.
I am too old and too poor to travel. I am also too cowardly to want to meet a top predator in its natural habitat. But I would much rather sharks succeed as a tourist attraction than become extinct from overfishing. Go sharks.
Petition signed......... sadly noted
Thanks but no thanks.
These sharks need to be saved. Saving the sharks by swimming with them is the only reason why I would even consider swimming with them!
I have always wanted to swim with them but they do need to be protected. Humans are destroying every species they come in contact with.
Looks fascinating, but I think I'll give this one a miss!
I watched a documentary the other day on the effect on sharks after the release of Jaws the movie. It was sickening to see many treating JAWS as an excuse to go out hunting down sharks. Many shark species are very low, and we only have ourselves to blame. Hunting of ANY animal should be stopped asap. There is no need to hunt an animal, even if you do consider it 'overpopulated' (which is bs since an animal is only taking advantage of the lack of predation by predator animals, to pro-create, and will stop breeding so much of it's own accord when food sources run low and so on).
Shark hunters need to die!
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