Tiger White's Demise - A Shark's Fate

Blogging is a wierd process. What to leave in? What to leave out? Some blogs seem to follow each and every turn of the week, from important to ordinary, and others, such it seems as mine, only get added to when there is something that just cannot go unmissed.
Whilst it's always good to be inspired to write something by a turn of good fortune, or an unforgettable day in the water, there are weeks that are so full of bad news that writing about them becomes a must. Last week was such a week.
First of all came reports that Great Whites had been killed on the Queensland coast in Australia by drumlines, and then only a few days afterwards came some saddening images passed onto me by my good friend Wolfgang Leander, who had recived them from friends in Aliwal South Africa. Two large tiger sharks laying dead in a boat, the latest victims to the Natal Sharks Board's rediculous strategy of shark nets and drumlines to 'protect' the public from these incredible animals.
It's always sad to see a dead shark, but these Aliwal animals have become like members of the dive community's family. To see them killed in this unnecessary way is more than just another dead body amongst the annual millions that take place.
But more worrying than the dead sharks is the blatant pig headedness of the protectionate that cause this environmental damage. Both the Australian and South African authorities responded in a shocking 'holier than thou' totalitarianist monologue, of the type historically atttributed to military dictators or perfidious religious leaders.
These imposing bodies claim to exist in the dual interests of public protection and environmental understanding. We know the effectiveness of drumlines to be completely farcical, and really how long can large industrial sized gillnets, that catch all manner of marine life in an indiscriminate fashion really be tolerated by an increasingly environmentally aware public. That said, one imagines the scientific practice from these institutions to be driven by aeons old techniques such as disection, coupled with rows of jars full of stained formaldehyde containing yet further disected shark parts, accompanied by coffee stained and scrumpled pages of derelict notes that will never be peer reviewed.
Why? Because the peers have moved on, unlike the Natal Sharks Board or Queensland's Shark Patrol Program who insist on living with the day before yesterdays methodology. Modern science has moved on from the dark days of yore. Population counts, direct observation, satelite tagging, acoustic tagging, bathymetry and eco system viability are the order of today. Yesterday's decrepit methods of studying dead bodies, and the entire cerebral disfunctionality that goes with it have no place in conservation as it has grown to be.
These governmental organisations are failing. They are failing the animals that we have placed laws by which to protect, and they are failing the people that have put them in their places of power. Their outstanding failure to genuinely understand the animals that they have been placed in a position of power to protect, is only duplicating that ingorance on an unsuspecting public.
The tide must change on this issue.

permission to use photos not obtained. please contact in the event of an issue and i will take them down.

Cowes Week 2008

When the water in the UK is just too green to go diving (which is about 360 days of the year!!) there is only one thing you can do....go and get some yacht action. Cowes is a lively little town made explosive with the annual arrival of this massive sailing event. Many classes of craft are there in force, and the shoreside entertainment is not short thrift. But hey, too much time in cold water has seen the end of my dancing days, or maybe I've just become too serious in my not so old age.

Anyway, what draws me to Cowes is not the party scene, but the chance to get some fantastic images of some magnificent craft, being plied by their magnificent crafstmen sailors. There's not much more exilharating (apart from sharks!) than watching a few tonnes of hull being wrenched over towards the boiling murk by many square yards of sail, with a lot of creaking ang groaning, louder than the slap of heavy wave against the port side. No thats not my joints creaking, it's all that superb maritime engineering pitting itself against mother nature and all that a mildly disappointing light August breeze can throw at it. The subtle scent of the broiling Solent, the misty salt air and the creaking and groaning of the worlds finest watercraft are enough to send me on a high, and chasing them about in a RIB trying to get some images that sum the magic up is a challenge that I shall not soon be bored of, at least whilst the sea close to where I live refuses to give up it's underwater secrets.

Pictured is an Extreme 40, probably the most exciting craft on the water today, an absolute thrill to watch and something of an addiction, leaving me hankering for the next time I can see them in full swing.

Their future

Here is a short piece I put together whilst I was collecting footage for the documentary that I am making on shark fishing and the fin trade. It is not intended to be part of the doc, but I thought something like this would make a good advertisement to bring this issue to local poeples attention.

cowes looms....

During this terrible, cold spring it's easy to forget that summer is now with us, not just around the corner as it still seems, albeit miserable and wintry. The optimism of getting in the water to look for sharks and rays off the coast of our sunny island coast has faded along with the sun, so today I remembered I should be getting on with looking for photogrpahic commissions for cowes week, which will soon be upon us.

Here are a few banner images that I have just placed on my listing with sailingnetworks, that I hope will generate some interest in my images of the excellent and addictive action that happens here in August.

music, food for the soul

The sea surrounding the UK, although full of interesting and beautiful things, is a fickle muse. Much of the year it is too cold or gloomy to consider entering, and our late spring here has lengthened our wait to go and explore what she has to offer.
The other love of my life is music, and music is made more powerful still when it is mixed with visuals. I recently came across the music of a one Levon Helm, and below is a fairly lengthy music video compilation from him. I am drawn to post this as the sentiment therein is one that I share. I grew up in the heart of the English Countryside, where farming is part of the texture of the land. I was involved in farming for over fifteen years, and watched as the industry changed and eventually died around us. This film harks back to those times, albeit on a different continent and shows how farming people are influenced by the changing world around them. Often farmers are blamed for the wholesale destruction of the environment, but really, is it not us as consumers who are to blame? How are we to eat if not for the corn or the cow? As our population explodes, we point our fingers at the simplistic men and women of the countryside, laying the blame, but it is not the farmers of dirt that are guilty, it is farmers of greed. Consumer wealth and electronic superstatus are the order of today, so sit back and watch this, and celebrate the good old days.

internet: transcending time and space

It is often noted that the internet has joined up the world, made it smaller in so many ways. This week, this was bought home to me in a way I'd not considered before, that it is not just our current dimension that is bridged, but time also is surpassed, when the past is brought to the future, for current relevance.
Through our online group of likeminded shark conservationists, I have been fortunate to become aquainted with Ila France Porcher, who lives on an Island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific. Although I have never met her, she is known and respected amongst our group of friends to be well versed in literacy, and is full of respect for the sanctity of the living being, particularly sharks. This is the way that we know the internet; to join people who live in the current time, but it struck me when Ila posted a quote from Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), that information not only passes across distance, but also across time, when something written 100 years ago, shows us the relevance of our actions in our own daily world.

I shall leave you to ponder on the words of Conrad, posted by Ila who was seeking to explain the relevance of art and it's value equated with that of science and math.

Ila's own moving dedications to sharks can be found at http://sharkwords.blogspot.com

"...The artist, then, like the thinker or the scientist, seeks the truth and makes his appeal. Impressed by the aspect of the world, the thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts--whence, presently, emerging they make their appeal to those qualities of our being that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They speak authoritatively to our common sense, to our intelligence, to our desire of peace or to our desire of unrest; not seldom to our prejudices, sometimes to our fears, often to our egoism--but always to our credulity. And their words are heard with reverence, for their concern is with weighty matters: with the cultivation of our minds and the proper care of our bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions, with the perfection of the means and the glorification of our most precious aims.

"It is otherwise with the artist.

" ...His appeal is less loud, more profound, less distinct, more stirring--and sooner forgotten. Yet its effect endures forever. The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom: to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation--to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn."

NOAA's Shark Ark

The United states have made a two significant moves recently to protect its shark populations. The first is a draft bill by Hon Madeleine Z. Bordallo which aims to close certain loopholes in current legislation to protect sharks from finning at sea. However, this bill does not so far seem to require implementation of a clause by which sharks are required to be landed with fins attached. It might however prevent farcical events from occuring such as recently when a Hong Kong Shipping Company vessel "King Diamond II" loaded with 32 tonnes of fins was siezed under the 2000 Shark Finning Law in American waters. Prosecution failed after it was claimed that the vessel was not directly involved in fishing, but was a transport vessel collecting fins from smaller fishing boats. The HK Shipping Company reclaimed all of the fins.

More encouraging still is a proposal by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to protect coastal shark species such as the Sandbar Shark by banning the removal of fins, meaning that the shark must be landed whole. NOAA also proposes to reduce the catch quotas by a very significant level, and to ensure that takes of Sandbar sharks will only occur as part of a research fishery program. Read the full article on NOAA's site.

It is crucial that these efforts are supported, as you can bet that there will be plenty of fishing interests trying to make sure that they fail.
To support the Shark Conservation Act of 2008, Oceana have an online procedure which can be found here.

To support NOAA's proposals, you must email your support to the following email address: shark.finalEIS@noaa.gov