OUR HISTORY

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The Shark Group launched "The International Year of the Shark" in 2009 to draw public attention to the plight of Sharks. This  year was inspired by findings of The Global Shark Assessment that at current rates of decline, the most threatened shark species would be extinct in ten to fifteen years. In large regions, species that were once numerous had fallen to 1% of their original numbers. Long-line fishing factory ships loot the oceans with lines of up to fifty miles long, and thousands of baited hooks. For every ten pounds of fish killed, they throw away one hundred pounds of marine life. This waste of fifty billion pounds of marine life yearly, including sharks, is casually referred to as “by-catch”. The massacre is comparable to that of the buffalo on the North American plains 200 years ago, but on a much larger scale.

 

Our plea for protection became a movement that picked up speed as the word spread. The Year of the Shark banner was flown by dive clubs, conservation groups, and NGOs all over the world, and educational material produced by The Shark Group was distributed in fourteen languages.

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The International Year of the Shark 2009 had the following goals:

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• Convincing the consumers of shark fin soup that shark finning is driving sharks to extinction and that they must change the recipe, or at least find a substitute for the fins.

• Educating the public regarding the true nature of sharks and their threatened status to counter the effects of shark attack hysteria, as spread by the mass media, and which for years has posed a serious barrier to their protection.

• Obtaining protection for threatened species.

• Solving the problem of the slaughter resulting from the use of shark nets and drum lines used to protect beaches in some areas

• Reducing by-catch losses, and the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) limits defined in fisheries law.

• Promoting marine protected areas, and enforcing protection of sharks within existing ones.

• Persuading shark fishermen to practise tag and release only, rather than killing the sharks they fish.

 

The Year began with the decision of Alibaba, the largest Chinese Internet trading company, to stop allowing the sale of shark fins on its web-sites.

 

In America, The Shark Free Marinas project began, with the goal of freeing all marinas from the killing of sharks.

 

Omar Mulla, Oceanic Defence’s Youth Ambassador, of just sixteen, lead the Destin shark campaign to change all tournaments there from "Catch and Kill" to "Catch and Release."

 

Laura Morris, of the Shark Research Institute, with the dive club, Ocean Blue, initiated a campaign in New York City to remove shark fin soup from Asian restaurants there. Cooperative restaurants were given ‘No Finning’ decals for their entrance doors and cards that could be clipped to menus, explaining their decision to patrons. Hilary Goodwin, of The Animal Welfare Institute worked on the same issue in Washington DC.

 

The Shark Finatics, a group of young students led by Robin Culler, worked on educating the public about the plight of sharks. They explained the finning process to people who didn't know about it, held local workshops for children on sharks, and gave talks on shark conservation in regional schools.

 

The Centre for Oceanic Awareness, Research, and Education (COARE) began issuing certifications designed to give consumers confidence that their choices help protect sharks, under its Shark Safe program, and established the SharkSafe.org website in several languages including Chinese.

 

The remarkable film "Sharkwater"showing the true nature of sharks, and exposing the criminal nature of the massacre for the shark fin soup market, was taken to China by its creator, Rob Stewart and his team, to help educate the consumers of the dish about its origins.

 

In Africa, the hard-hitting documentary 'Sharks in Deep Trouble,' by shark conservationist Lesley Rochat, founder of The AfriOceans Conservation Alliance (AOCA), raised awareness about shark finning and won several awards on the International film festival circuit. Rochat also started the AfriOceans Warriors Campaign, as a related Community Project for youth.

 

In the South Pacific Ocean, Palau declared its waters to be the first Shark Sanctuary, an illumined and heroic precedent by the government of this island country, in the fight to save the last of the Pacific sharks.

 

Fiji launched a "Shark Conservation and Awareness Project," which widely broadcasted the spirit and meaning of the International Year of the Shark.

 

Through the long years of hard work of The Shark Alliance, The European Union finally produced the Plan of Action for Sharks, which included total protection for angel sharks and three species of rays.

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Katrien Vandevelde, working with an informal network of shark conservationists and groups in Europe and America, initiated a drive to stop the sale of thresher shark spines as dog chew toys.

 

The Shark Group also worked on the grave obstacle to the protection of sharks erected by the mass media, and which is exemplified by Discovery Channel's 'Shark Week.' Representatives from The Shark Group had met with Discovery's CEOs at their head office in Maryland in 2008, to try to convince them to stop presenting sharks as mindless man-eaters. Following the failure of this effort, we publicized how for a generation the network had generated intense fear and hatred of sharks by using them as objects of horror to attract viewers and gain huge profits.

 

Marie France published a book called “Nurse or Nemesis” to inform the public about the plight of the Australian Nurse shark and other threatened species and countless other individuals and groups all over the world promoted the need to protect sharks, each in their own way.

 

The Year of the Shark in 2009 started a powerful grass-roots movement to save these remarkable and ecologically-important animals from extinction, and in The Year of the Shark 2019, the impetus continued.