My friend, Patric Douglas of SharkDiver.com had the following shark catch data posted on his blog site.The following numbers come from Instituto National de Pesca, Ecuador. These are the official reported numbers of shark landings for June.
The actual numbers are much higher and do not reflect illegal shark fining where the carcass is dumped.
June 2008 :
Pelagic Thresher : 281.9 tons (t).
Silky Shark : 74.8 t .
Blue Shark : 53.7 t .
Smooth Hammerhead : 25.7 t .
Scalloped Hammerhead : 10.8 t .
Shortfin Mako : 3.0 t .
Carcharhinus spp : 0.5 t .
Thresher (Alopias spp): 0.2 t .
Brown Smoothhound : 0.1 t .
Bigeye Thresher : 0.1 t .
TOTAL : 450.8 t in the month of June 2008
One country. One month. One total. 901,600 pounds of sharks.
Depressing. So, what can we do? Start by supporting the organizations that tackle shark conservation issues on an international level - verbal support, written support, and financial support (I know that's a tough one in today's economy). Organizations like WildAid, Bite-Back, even the World Wildlife Fund's Conservation Action Network, all need our support.
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