Sunday, October 25, 2015

Shark Conservation - Job done?

Yao Ming - Shark saver extraordinaire! Source.

And I cite - proudly posted by Shark Savers.
Ming joined forces with conservation non-profit WildAid to launch a public awareness campaign about the devastating effect this soup is having on the ocean’s wildlife...

The campaign has been a huge success, credited with a 50 to 70 per cent drop in shark harvesting. Even better, recent studies show that 91 per cent of Chinese citizens now support a ban on shark fin soup.

Ming’s not stopping there. Having saved the lives of some 50 million sharks...
Oh well - then let's all go home!
According to the paper, killing those remaining 30 to 50-odd million Sharks (or possibly, based on assumptions, even a lot less - read it!) would more than halve the exploitation rate, allow Shark populations to rebound and thus be sustainable! Plus, it turns out that after all, the Chinese don't like that shit anyway! 

And this is just what Yao Ming and WildAid have achieved!
Add the Shark sanctuaries, the fin bans, the airline boycotts, the management measures and of course the petitions (!) and it becomes blatantly obvious that the problem has been solved!

I say, this is just simply egregious - facts here.
Let's see whether WildAid and Shark Savers have the integrity to post a retraction/correction.

Or not!

2 comments:

Angelo Villagomez said...

Hey, have you read the paper that questions the assumptions of the 100 million paper? It doesn't give a new number, but someone could do the math...

DaShark said...

Yes I have, and linked to it in the post!

It does not say "the 97m are wrong" but merely says, that number is based on a helluva lot of assumptions, and making other equally plausible assumptions would have led to a much lower result.

Nothing new really - we're back to the thorny issue of requiring good data = hard numbers. And you know who has them but is not being held sufficiently accountable: the trade!