Sharkwater... a must see documentary.

Why do so many not see the light?

When so many do see our ways as barbaric?

Its almost like some people are not very human/humane. We will be all more humane one day, but can we survive this portion of our existence to get to that point? Or do we break down the ecosystem first. Our future depends on us and we are the ones that are ruining it.

I hope the world wakes up soon...its getting lonely when you can only find a few like-minded people on the Internet and barely any in real life.

reply to post by ::.mika.::


You are right. The shallow oceans of our world are tiny in comparison to the deep ocean. But the shallow parts of our oceans (where coral flourishes) are home to the "vast majority" of marine life on our planet.
Unfortunately, they are also the most vulnerable to human pollution.

dsc.discovery.com...

They talked about this on the "Planet Earth" documentary too on shallow oceans I think. The coral is dying off. It supports some the most complex ecosystems on our planet. If the coral goes, so does a vast swath of our planet's marine life.

I read about this next part in an article from Discover magazine a few months ago. Apparently there is an enormous mass/patch of trash and plastic floating around somewhere in the pacific. And it is massive..

Article from discover magazine:
The World's Largest Dump: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I learned about the Eastern Garbage Patch, also called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, from studies the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, based in Long Beach, California, has conducted while trolling it seven times over the past decade. The foundation’s fieldwork has revealed an ever-growing synthetic sea where particles concentrate by season, trash commutes in the currents from far-off places, and plastic outweighs zooplankton, retarding ocean life. Fascinating stuff. Captain Charles Moore founded the Algalita foundation and commands its research vessel, the Alguita. (Maddeningly similar names, I know.)

Moore first discovered the garbage patch when he crossed the Pacific in 1997 after competing in the Transpacific Yacht Race. Since then he has been passionate about investigating it and creating awareness about its significance—and the significance of the Eastern Garbage Patch is enormous. His findings have gone a long way toward educating the science community, if not yet the public, on the magnitude of marine pollution and its impact on life—all life.

Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean

This thing is basically an enormous floating island consisting of man-made plastics, rope, and other random debris.

The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.

Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans."

The report found that 80 percent of the oceans' litter originated on land. While ships drop the occasional load of shoes or hockey gloves into the waters (sometimes on purpose and illegally), the vast majority of sea garbage begins its journey as onshore trash.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is particularly dangerous for birds and marine life, said Warner Chabot, vice president of the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group.

Sea turtles mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish. Birds swoop down and swallow indigestible shards of plastic. The petroleum-based plastics take decades to break down, and as long as they float on the ocean's surface, they can appear as feeding grounds.

"These animals die because the plastic eventually fills their stomachs," Chabot said. "It doesn't pass, and they literally starve to death."

We are destroying what is left of our planet.

-ChriS

I am ashamed to be a human. I'll never understand some of the things we do. Killing the sharks for their fins is just plain stupid and we let it happen. If only 16-17 countries have banned it, how many does that leave that are still letting it go on? Sickening because it serves no useful purpose.

Sad, also, is what happened to the people in the film. Almost getting arrested for trying to stop illegal activities, even when invited by the government. Just another example of our world gone insane.

And my Dear collegues - since when did You start thinking that earth and life will not manage if we don't do something? that's so naive.
Humanity isn't irreplacable - it may be a tragedy to the human survival and to the world as we know it, but ultimately it just doesn't matter, Nature will always manage to emerge on top. You are trying to cure syphilis with a bandage

reply to post by intrepid


Starred and flagged. I caught the whole film on Youtube and it was shocking. I forget the time frame, but supposedly we've killed off 90% of the shark population in recent times. Kudos for spreading the word.

I dont have a problem with countries having their shark fin soup,but only if its actually sustainable to do so,obviously it isn't..but what can people do to pressure countries exactly?

Originally posted by intrepid
Sharks are an invaluable part of Earth's entire ecosystem and we are bringing them to extinction.

Sharkwater is a 2007 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Rob Stewart, who also plays the lead role. In the film, Stewart seeks to deflate current attitudes about sharks, and exposes how the voracious shark-hunting industry is driving them to extinction.

Filmed in high definition video, Sharkwater explores the densest shark populations in the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption of the shark-hunting industry in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.

en.wikipedia.org...

He explains in this that by eradicating the sharks it would allow the fish that feed on oxygen producing creature to go on unabated. Over 2/3 of the Earth's oxygen comes from the oceans.

This movie is visually stunning and also disturbing because of our barbarous behavior. Here's the trailer:

If you are concerned about the planet, this is a must see movie.

There must enough dead sharks missing their fins around japan on the
ocean floor to make a carpet several meters thick.

Originally posted by TheAgentNineteen

I travel to Florida and the Bahamas often, and as an accomplished individual of both Surface, and Undersea activities, I dare say that the sharks in this Tropical Caribbean/Atlantic Region have been exploding in Population. As a matter of fact, many Marine Biologists have stated that if anything is being decimated, it is rather the Shark's Natural Prey of certain Fish Species, and many of the Shark attacks are a result of Inland progression due to this very factor.

One of the reason why the shark population is so healthy in that area is that shark diving operations are a lot more profitable than selling it off to the Asian fin market.

reply to post by BlasteR

I read about that, too. Since then I've made a concerted effort to go out and pick up all trash in my neighborhood, especially plastics. A lot of it is not from indiscriminate littering, but from blowing out of recycle bins on pick-up day. My neighbors are woefully "programmed" to put out their recyclables even on nights the wind is blowing up fierce and the next day I'm inevitably stuck picking up all the plastic and aluminum cans that got blown around. I've started getting the neighborhood kids to pick some of it up, too, but I had to stop them from going into the wooded area near our street because a registered child sex offender recently moved in. But that's another topic altogether. Anyway I clean up the woods because the plastic ends up in a local stream. So far it's just me doing that and it's a huge job.

I don't know if any of us would have the opportunity to stop shark hunting, but we can still do our small part to clean up the plastic that is choking our oceans to death. Put on some rubber work gloves and pick up the trash!

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by TheAgentNineteen

 

"Rebound effect" perhaps.

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) took administrative action in 1993 to halt finning in Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico waters after it became apparent the practice was reducing shark populations, but the DOC's ruling did not include fishing in the Pacific, where finning was less prevalent a decade ago.

info.hktdc.com...

Good find

I was speaking from my own experiences, and attained knowledge of this particular region and subject matter, but I am glad to see that the facts provide a possible reason behind my observations.

A "Rebound Effect" sounds very likely indeed. It is very similar as to what is occurring right now with the Wolves being "reintroduced" into the Lower 48, and in the process, being afforded certain protections.


I have to wonder though, if we do in fact over fish the Shark's natural prey, and this in turn emanates into more shoreline predation, then what are we to do about it? Do we force the Annual rotation of Legal Fishing Grounds from location to location? Do we allow for a certain number of licenses to be issued on a seasonal basis for massive shark fishing (Where the entire Shark is used, not simply de-finned)?

Thank you very much for posting that up Intrepid. I started watching it last nite and finished it tonite.

That was a very informative and eye opening video. I never realized the scale of the destruction.

Again, thank you much for bringing that to the foreground.

Silver

reply to post by InterestedObserver


That info is very comprehensive.. thanks. It does make you feel sick the sheer number of these being killed, it wasn't too long ago I was in a whaling thread on here trying to get the point across to some idiot of how barbaric that is. Its just not on.

Simply amazing, intrepid! Thanks so much for bringing this to my knowledge. I just finished this documentary and am, to be honest, quite moved. I am the type of person to not really care about these things. For example, I don't think one should go to jail for killing one's dog, as it is just property and not a human. Now, I realize the horrors of the killings of the sharks. What moved me the most was the scenes with the finnings of the sharks. The sharks, after being finned, simply sink down to the ocean and drown. They actually show one shark in particular doing this. Simply disgusting and sad. The guy (and the other people in the documentary too) is a hero for doing the things he did in the documentary. Great stuff! Yes, mass killings of animals that greatly affect nature like these sharks do is wrong.

EDIT:

I just did something I seldom do (for whatever reason). I just gave you a flag and a star.

[edit on 30-3-2009 by they see ALL]

reply to post by TheAgentNineteen

Overfishing of prey also reduces the numbers of species higher up the food chain. Pelagic species do not become inshore feeders because their normal food supply gets overfished, they just don't survive.

It is when more prey is available that predator numbers also increase. In my part of the world the sea turtle population has exploded since they became protected in 1973. Turtles are the tigers' favorite food. While I can't find statistical backup (because hard data is scarce), it seems like the tiger shark population has increased. There do seem to be more attacks on humans than there were 20 years ago. Should we start taking turtles again?

[edit on 3/30/2009 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


IMHO
When we mess for a few century in the process on an ecosystem we cannot change overnight and expect to see things be normal again. We have a similar problem with the population of seal and cod.

We will have to find the point of balance that will permit us to fish to feed the world population and sustain the ecosystem. Unfortunatly, I'm not sure we are mature enough as a society to do that.

We are in for some big changes in our lifetime (or that of our children).

[edit on 30-3-2009 by grandnic]

reply to post by Phage


I think you're exactly right. Shark attacks on humans have been steadily on the rise over the past decade. But I think so many people demonize what is an otherwise powerful, beautiful and graceful creature.

THIS map is a regularly updated map of all shark attacks on humans from the year 2000-present. Its the only one I could find that actually shows global shark attacks like this. There are other maps like this all over the internet but mostly are regional such as off the coast of Florida or New Jersey. The global map is obviously still incomplete but I would expect any map like this to be incomplete unless it was part of an official, well-funded statistical study of some kind. Most of the regional maps have well-funded organisations run either privately or by the state that do the research and study the statistical data so the data is usually really good but usually only applies to specific geographic locations (none of them showing global instances of shark attacks, at least none that I could find).

The map is incomplete. It contains all unprovoked fatal attacks since 2000 and some non fatal attacks.

What is evident here with regards to this map is that shark attacks are most prevalent where more humans are around (logically, that would statistically be expected anyway). From what I've read and seen on television these sharks are only attacking what they believe to be prey (mistaken identity).

This graph shows all known fatal shark attacks by decade.


It is well known and well documented that more people mean more shark attacks. There have been many studies which confirm this. The following link is a great example..
The Relative Risk of Shark Attacks to Humans:
More People Mean More Attacks

I think there is a big misconception floating around that the increased incidences of shark attacks on people are somehow caused by sharks attacking people on purpose (for whatever reasons). We know this is not the case. The only thing more disturbing to me than people killing sharks for their fins is people killing sharks just to kill them. It probably happens all the time. I'm sure many sharks have died needlessly at the hands of idiotic fisherman for whatever reason. We can only guess how many have been slaughtered in an effort to "make the beaches safer".. But this entire mode of thinking is just completely sickening and depressing.

I recently saw on television how animal rights groups and concerned people in general are going out to fish markets looking to buy shark fins and whale meat in an effort to attack the illegal black market sale of these animals. They get a few samples and conduct DNA testing on them to determine what exact species of creature the meat came from. This relatively new approach is sometimes referred to as "Conservation Genetics" . Some organisations have teams in specific locations around world that have portable testing kits. They can then use this genetic information gathered from the samples as a tool for taking legal action or, taking it a step further, tracking down those responsible for killing the animals illegally whenever possible (though from what I have seen most of the vessels responsible for shark finning are already well known to most of these animal rights groups).

That's really good to see. The problem is this is such extremely small ongoing effort that really doesn't have the kind of public support or funding to make a big impact on this immense black market sale of sharks and other endangered marine animals. It is a step in the right direction..

This 2006 article talks about genetic conservation related to shark finning in a little more detail..
New weapon against illegal shark-fin trade

I was also reading about a really interesting documentary called "Sharks: Stewards of the Reef" but I was unable to find a free version of the full-length documentary with any of my search engines.
I did find this 3-minute trailer for the documentary though. It talks about conservation, shark finning, and how humans are now the apex predators instead of the sharks. How true that is.



-ChriS

Wow - great film. Thank you for the heads up.
We watched last night.
More important that most people can imagine.

It's been a few years since this has been discussed but in light of kn0wh0w's thread it seems like it could use a bump. No stars or flags needed. Just watch the movie please. It's important to all of us.

reply to post by intrepid


I just got around to seeing this from your link in my thread. You are correct, I will need to get this and watch the whole thing. It is very sad what is being done to sharks. The guy from the video claiming "Sharks are the scourge of the Ocean, and everyone should catch one" just goes to show the blatant disregard for a vital animal in the world.

I can't claim I would ever get in the water with a Great White, that's a bit much for me, But I do think we need to pump the brakes one what is going on. The over fishing of the Oceans is a very largely talked about area in nearly every commercial fishing industry... It's but a small quite voice for sharks, and that is something we may regret.

Bump.... because it's Shark Week and because it's important.