Have you ever felt the need to make the world a more beautiful place?
Yeah me too!!
This weekend I was given the opportunity to do just that!! I was lucky enough to petition for the shark fin ban that the City of Toronto’s councilors are currently working on putting into place. The councilors will vote on this issue in October.
If this ban gets passed it will mean that shark fin soup can no longer be served in Toronto. This dish is a delicacy in China and is generally served at weddings; however it is also served in several restaurants in Toronto’s Chinatown. The ban will also mean that the lives of many, many sharks will be saved!! They won’t have to endure a fate where their fins are cut off and their still alive bodies are thrown back into the ocean to suffer a cruel and painful death!!
One of the people I petitioned with was Joanna Hui. It was so awesome to work with her and I told her how much I admire her courage to stand up for what she believes in and go against her culture. She responded by shrugging and saying “it’s only a bowl of soup!!” lol.
Most people I met were very educated on the plight of sharks and the teacher inside me was happy to see that!! I did encounter a few people who said “I’m a vegetarian, so I already do my part to save sharks!!” But I then explained how sharks are being slaughtered in other parts of the globe and if a shark fin ban happened in Toronto an example would be set for the entire world!! After being educated, people were always more than happy to sign and even apologized for not being informed on the issue. I thought that their apologies were sweet, but not required!! I also met a couple of people who told me that I should be fighting for other issues – none of which were environmental or animal rights issues. I simply told them that I am here to petition for the ban on shark fins and acknowledged that their issues were valid also!! I ended up with their signatures too!!
Some people were hesitant about saving sharks because they erroneously thought that sharks were a direct threat to humans thanks to information acquired from mythology and movies.
I explained that sharks are NOT a direct threat to humans, but may do an exploratory bite in order to discover what we are or may even mistake us for sea lions since that’s how we look to a shark when we are swimming (and sharks eat sea lions). I also explained that most people who get bitten by sharks usually end up on shore and survive!! Statistically there are 50-70 shark bites per year worldwide and about 5-15 result in fatalities (Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0613_050613_sharkfacts.html).
The chances of getting attacked by a shark are very slim!! The likelihood of a person getting bitten by a shark are 1 in 11.5 million and the likelihood of getting killed by a shark are less than 1 in 264.1 million (Source: http://www.oceana.org/?id=2074). Also, in the United States each year about 3,306 people die from drowning, but only 1 person on average per year dies of a shark bite (Source: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/attacks/relarisklifetime.html).
Sadly, the real threat is humans because we kill more than 100 million sharks per year (Source: http://www.oceana.org/?id=2074).
Sharks control the eco-systems of the oceans and if we kill them off, the fish species that they control will grow out of control and eat all of the phytoplankton. Phytoplankton use energy from the sun and nutrients from the water in order to survive. During photosynthesis, phytoplankton release oxygen into the water. We get over half of our oxygen this way. So if we kill off sharks it will only be a matter of time before we kill off phytoplankton and half of our oxygen supply. We get the other half of our oxygen from trees, plants, and grasses (Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0607_040607_phytoplankton.html).
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who signed the shark fin ban petition either on Sunday or any other day!! xoxo
If you would like to help the cause please consider signing the online petition below:
http://unitedconservationists.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=124&Itemid=236
Love,
Danielle
Photo Credit: Walldesk
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