August 26, 2013


Twelve people a year are killed by sharks, mostly in Australia. By comparison, one hundred million sharks are killed by humans every year. An average 38 million of them are killed by shark finning - hacking off the shark’s fins and throwing it back into the sea alive where it starves, drowns or bleeds to death. The demand for shark fins, an Asian delicacy, has already pushed many species of sharks to the edge of extinction. The rest die primarily as by-catch. Joe Chernov came up with a graphic that drives home the staggering number of shark deaths per hour compared to the annual total of humans by sharks. Seriously, take the time to click on this link to look at this awesome chart.

Then there's this amazing woman, who regularly removes fishing hooks from the mouths of wild sharks by sticking her hand down their throats. The sharks actually seem to understand she's trying to help, maybe thinking of her as a funny sort of cleaner fish, who knows? But if the human being and the fish are going to coexist peacefully, we will need a lot more people like her and a lot less shark fin soup on the menu.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon