Shark-Free Fish ’n Chips

Australians inherited the British love of fish and chips. Little do they know that their battered fish, euphemistically called "flake," is shark and that its heavy-metals content, at often 14 times recommended levels, is such that it's often not fit for human consumption. The double tragedy is that it is supplied by a shark-fishing fleet operating off the coast of South Africa on a devastatingly intense basis that has overfished smoothhound and soupfin shark.

Each demersal shark longlining vessel regularly catches up to a thousand sharks per trip and by way of bycatch also kills CITES-protected species such as smooth hammerhead and great white sharks. South Africa's shark population is collapsing at an alarming rate as a consequence.

You can directly tweet at the South African Minister of Environment by visiting www.sharkfreechips.com, asking her to close down this fishery, which is destroying South Africa's tourism economy and poisoning unwary Australians.