Greetings from Shark Rescue!

Hi everyone,

Great being here. I'm an avid diver, which is why I'm here to meet folks. Moreover -- because I believe you can't really dive without wanting to protect the oceans -- I started a campaign to protect the oceans.

It's called Shark Rescue, and it's very diver friendly! In fact, although we're just 4 months old, we've actually made a difference in the water.

The best thing for other divers is our contest: get our postcards that call for an end to the shark trade and protecting the oceans, and you could win a 2 week sailing live-aboard dive holiday in Indonesia... Raja Ampat, Komodo and more.

It's such a great prize... I wish I could enter and win it! Anyway, I hope it's OK for me to post this here, because it's really about helping divers help protect the oceans.

You can read more about it at:
www.sharkrescue.com/contests

Thanks all!

- Ran

Hi Shark-Rescue,
Welcome to the boards and feel free to dive right in.

Good luck with your business, It must be alot of hard work, but i'm sure the results will be worth it. You mention that you've already made a difference in the water - any chance you could elaborate and tell us more, I'm sure there's quite a few others, including me who would be interested.

Hi Lottie,

Thanks for your welcome aboard.

Shark Rescue has helped in the water by getting companies to stop selling shark products, such as some dog chew toys made from thresher shark spines. Hard to believe, but these sharks are being fished in India, only to be sold as dog chews in the US. Visit Shark Rescue to see how you can also help.

We also got Time Out magazine to change its editorial policy, regarding their restaurant reviews. They will no longer publish articles pushing the eating of marine species that are endangered (obviously, that means shark fin but also bluefin tuna and more).

At the core of our activities is that when someone supports Shark Rescue, they receive our signature postcard, which is already addressed to the one leader who can make the biggest impact for protecting sharks and our oceans.

Hong Kong is the biggest single trader in shark fin, with over 55% of the trade coming through the city. Pretty awful stuff. So by getting our postcards, you can send a message to the Chief Executive (like the President in the US) with a call to action to protect the health of our oceans.

For the diving community, we also organised a SWEET contest. Imagine a 10+ day cruise on an all-wood sailing live-aboard... In Indonesia. Raja Ampat, Komodo or anywhere else the SMY Ondina sails.

You can find out more at:
Shark Rescue Contests

Thanks again Lottie!

I edited your link so it was an active hyperlink.

I was at the Jakarta airport and they had a retain store inside devoted to what was primarily dried shark fins. I took a sad photo of it all.

No use arguing with the workers inside, they were just retail employees.

Thanks for updating the link. That's great.

If you want to see the tip of the iceberg, you should see our launch. We went to 'ground zero' of the shark trade, in Hong Kong, and had a pretty punk protest. As a fan pointed out, all it takes is someone to stand up and startle the status quo. Well, I invite all who love the ocean to stand up and startle the status quo.

Our launch can be seen on YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPp9iyKEMNQ

Thanks again!

I edited the post, all you need to do is paste the URL to your Youtube video, no tags needed, it auto-embeds

Thanks for that video. I posted it on my Facebook as well so everyone I know can view it.

And my thanks go to you.

Obviously, the more support we have, the more impact we will have where it's needed most. If you look closely at the video, you can see that the shops are packed with bags of shark fin. The worst part is that this is only what we can see, the tip of the iceberg.

Another fishing practice that is beginning to see the light of day is how fishermen are also targeting rays, harvesting their gills. Yet another unchecked and highly abused fishing practice.