Keep sharks in the oceans and out of our soup bowls

The Underwater Channel (www.theunderwaterchannel.tv)is a new web TV channel for divers. We are thrilled to announce that we’ve just achieved half of our target number of signatures for our Not on our Menu( http://www.theunderwaterchannel.tv/not-on-our-menu) petition against the iniquitous practice of shark-finning. We really need your help please to bring these 5,000 signatures up to our 10,000 target!

Our mission is to reach this target by World Ocean Day on 8th June, 2009. The petition will be presented to the UN Sec General in New York calling for effective policing of member states’ legislation and implementation where there isn’t any legislation.

Please go to Not on our Menu : (http://www.theunderwaterchannel.tv/not-on-our-menu), watch the short('girl vomiting fin')video and sign the petition. Then please pass on the link to your friends and contacts.

The Underwater Channel (www.theunderwaterchannel.tv) is a new web TV channel for divers and armchair divers – those who haven’t yet dived but might be persuaded to. We want to be a maverick for change and to draw people’s attention to what is happening to our oceans and the wildlife within them.

The Not on our Menu video has been re-versioned in Japanese, Chinese and Malay. It is in this part of the world, where Shark Fin Soup is so widely consumed, that the greatest concentration of persuasion needs to be focused. The best ambassadors in the Far East are the children of a culture where Shark Fin Soup remains the order of the day! In order to survive, sharks now need all the help they can get. Nicholas Claxton MD of The Underwater Channel says "we care passionately about the health of the world's oceans and want secure futures for all marine animals. We believe it is completely unacceptable that sharks, which are one of earth's oldest inhabitants, are now being pushed towards extinction by man, one of earth's more recent residents". Captain Paul Watson - Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society who is supporting the petition says, "Those who fear sharks should consider that the sharks have far more reason to fear us. They occasionally attack us by mistake when we venture into their world but we seek them out and destroy them with ruthless malice for a bowl of soup." On average in recent years sharks have accounted for less than ten human deaths annually in all the world's seas to fuel the growing demand for shark fins, man has been killing up to 100 million sharks each year. If there's no demand for Shark Fin Soup then there's no need to kill any more sharks. This is why The Underwater Channel fervently asks that they be kept in the oceans and out of our soup bowls! Please watch the video and sign the petition: http://www.theunderwaterchannel.tv/not-on-our-menu

Contributed by JillJ added 2009-04-27