Tag Archive
Working to Protect Marine Ecosystems: Oregon Bans Shark Fin Trade
In June 2011, Oregon passed legislation that prohibits the distribution and possession of shark fins within its state. Oregon House Representative Brad Witt, House District 31, sponsored House Bill 2838, which declares that an individual may not "possess, sell or offer for sale, trade or distribute a shark fin" within the state. Bill 2838 effectively closed a loophole that existed in Oregon state law, which prohibited the practice of "shark finning" within state waters but did not address the possession, distribution or trade of shark fins. House Bill 2838 prohibits such activity and effectively clarifies the rules adopted to prevent the establishment of a shark finning industry within Oregon. Shark finning is the process of removing the dorsal, pectoral, pelvic, anal, and tail fins of a shark. After all of a shark's fins and its tail are cut off, the rest of the shark is discarded back into the ocean. The shark is then left to survive without any of its limbs, which often results in starvation, suffocation and eventually death. In 2010, nearly 73 million sharks were killed as a result of shark finning. Sharks' slow reproduction rates raise many concerns over the survival of many shark species. Sustained growth in the demand for shark fins, which are used in traditional Chinese shark fin soup, may deplete worldwide shark populations and leave marine ecosystems without an important natural predator. Representative Witt's bill follows the passage of Hawaiian Senate Bill 2169, which also prohibits the sale, distribution, possession or trade of shark fins within the island state. Guam, Chile, the Bahamas and Washington State have already approved similar legislation. California [passed! -- editor] and the Northwest provinces of Canada are currently considering adopting shark finning laws as well. In 2012, Taiwan will move to ban shark finning at sea, and it will be... More »
Some Good News: Raja Ampat Big-Fish Now Thriving
I heard from a few people who thought that my blog about illegal fishing Komodo National Park was depressing. I agree. If we can't protect marine life in one of the world's most iconic parks, is there any hope? Burt and I have been thinking about this problem for a long time, especially for the two years we have been living in Indonesia consulting with Conservation International. Our primary focus has been exploring new sites and photographing marine life in Raja Ampat, which has, in case you haven't read a dive publication in the last 5 years, more species of fish and coral than any other tropical reef system on the planet (up to 1352 fish species and still counting!). We've been back a few weeks from our last R4 trip of the season ("ampat" means "four" in Bahasa Indonesia), a place where there are still new reefs to discover, new thrills to experience. Even though we wrote the guide to diving in R4, on this latest trip we dived several new (to us) sites. We concentrated mostly of on the Dampier Strait, perhaps the first area in R4 to be dived by tourists who began arriving and staying in primitive scuba camps about 15 years ago. The most amazing thing about these new sites was the fish. It's hard to imagine what Raja's reef were like about 10 years ago when the first tourist divers saw them, but believe it or not, there's a lot of evidence that fish counts have risen steadily during this time. [caption id="attachment_704" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="Schools of bigger fish now thriving in Raja Ampat"][/caption] Now I'm not talking just your usual (for R4) masses of fusiliers and surgeonfish. I'm talking a reef where hundreds of tuna flashed around making "fish thunder" (cavitation) as they were chased by meter-long Spanish... More »
Paper Parks?
The text message came in about 9 AM a few Sundays ago. It was too early in the day to receive bad news, and just early enough to ruin my day. Essentially it was a call for help issued by one of the day boat operators in Komodo National Park. It seems that despite the area's status as a national park (and a World Heritage Site), nearly two decades of conservation work were being challenged by fishermen who had cast nets on two of Komodo's most prolific reefs. Where were the authorities, where were the patrol boats that were supposed to stop illegal fishing within park boundaries? No one seemed to know. A little background on Komodo and how it came to be one of the world's premier dive destinations: I believe Valerie and Ron Taylor had already dived Komodo, but few other western photojournalists had been there when we went on our first exploratory dive trip in 1992. Back then Komodo was hard to access and the facilities were far below basic. The main reason we endured the first trip (and eagerly came back for more) was that Komodo is one of the few places in the world where divers can experience two very different marine environments. The northern part of the park borders the Pacific with it's clear, warm waters and lush reefs. Southern Komodo abuts the Indian Ocean. The water is cooler, richer, and so packed with invertebrates and fish life it still amazes us even after more than 1000 dives in south Komodo. During our initial survey we wanted to photograph the difference between the two habitats, and so we motored toward the southern border of the park. The wind was raging in the channel between Komodo and Rinca, the park's two largest islands, but the current was with... More »
Shark Stroking: Free Diving with Great Whites
A call I got recently from Dr. Chip Scarlett of Austin, Texas got my attention. "You have to drop what you're doing and check out these white shark photos on this guy's website," he gushed enthusiastically into my speaker phone. "C'mon, Chip," I yawned. "I've seen more white shark images than a sea lion at Dangerous Reef. Don't you think that's a subject that's been covered enough. What's this about: more flying shark footage or are these whites actually flying planes now?" "Just check it out, you'll see what I mean." Chip and I have done some extended diving together in Palau and Yap, and he's as accomplished a photographer as most pros. I figured if he was excited about some photo gem he had uncovered, I'd probably be well served to check it out. So I dutifully copied down the cryptic instructions and in a matter of seconds, I was viewing some enthralling images of Michael Rutzen, the mad shark stroker and champion of pure brass nuts bravado. Rutzen is a 32-year old-diving entrepreneur who is the boss of Shark Diving Unlimited in the South African village of Gansbaai. He has developed quite a following during the last eight years or so from a cadre of international filmmakers and photographers as he indulges their "unusual ideas." Rutzen takes divers from all over the world out to Dyer Island with a mind to introducing them, up close and personal, to his own great white petting zoo. Michael's special passion is to freedive regularly with the sharks outside of a protective cage. You have to kind of wonder what prompted that first foray outside the bars. Something tells me you don't want to have Michael as your driver as you idle the Land Rover through Lion Country Safari Park, or you may wind up as an unwilling pedestrian... More »
Fresh Fish? Think Twice Before Ordering
Your responsibility to the marine life you love diving with People are now eating manta rays. That right, those lovely creatures you spend thousands of dollars to dive with in the Revillagigedos Islands, Yap and the Maldives. It’s all because shark populations are crashing. While the market for sharkfin soup continues to grow - - hell, you can buy it at Chinese restaurants in any city in America - - the shark fin population is crashing. So Asian chefs are looking for a substitute and the manta is it. If you’ve ever seen a manta underwater, you know it’s an easy target to spear or snag with a hook attached to buoyant oil drums, against which the manta struggles until it wears itself out. Traditionally, they’ve been caught by subsistence fishermen throughout Asia, but now there is money in that meat. Frank Pope of the London Times reports that in the eastern Indonesian port of Lamakera, catches of manta have rocketed from a few hundred to about 1,500 a year. Tim Clark, a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii, says manta rays are being used as shark fin soup filler, with the cartilage being mixed with low-grade shark fins in cheap versions of the soup. While the rays, distantly related to sharks, are ending up in Hong Kong’s restaurants, their gills are also being used in traditional Chinese medicines. “The big market is for the gill elements,” says Clark. “They are dried, ground to a powder and used in traditional Asian medicines.” The manta’s branchial gill plates, which filter plankton from seawater, can fetch up to $325 on the street in China, because practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine claim they reduce toxins in the body by purifying the blood, Pope says. Of course, news like this drives us divers crazy. It’s the equivalent of roasting... More »
Undercurrent Online Update
Get the best diving for your $$
Satisfaction guaranteed or all your money back!