SHARK WAVE WORKS WITH BRANDS, ARTISTS AND BUSINESSES TO FIND CREATIVE AND CULTURAL SOLUTIONS TO THE ISSUE OF SHARK CONSERVATION. OUR SHORT-TERM GOAL IS TO RAISE AWARENESS. OUR LONG-TERM GOAL IS TO AID THE END OF THE SHARK FIN TRADE THROUGH A PRODUCT-BASED, COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING-ORIENTED APPROACH.
In the summer of 2017, the Senate Commerce Committee voted to pass the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act (S. 793) – a bipartisan bill which would ban the buying and selling of processed shark fins domestically. In 2000, the Clinton administration signed into law a similar act designed to end shark fishing (The Shark Finning Prohibition Act), but it was riddled with loopholes that tied it up in the courts. In 2011, President Obama signed the Shark Conservation Act, designed to make finning illegal. Nonetheless, over 70 million sharks are killed by humans each year and their fins are bought and sold freely within the United States. For example, 60 tons of fins come through the Port of Los Angeles alone each year, despite their trade being illegal in the State of California.
Everyone can help. Write your Representative, as the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act enters the House. Cut down on your use of plastic to benefit the health of the oceans (straws are an easy thing to eliminate). Buy only sustainable seafood, if you can afford it. Teach your children about how intelligent, fascinating and majestic misunderstood species like sharks are. Support marine life-based eco-tourism in places like the Bahamas, Ecuador, the Indian Ocean and even Florida and California. Reaffirming the presence of sharks as a factor that can create sustainable revenue streams for local populations can dissuade them from getting involved in finning, which is often a choice made out of desperation in the first place.
Sharks have survived 450 million years. Let’s make sure they can make it to 500.