Our Appetites are Driving Sharks and Tuna to Extinction

[Ed. Note: Solution? GO VEGAN!!]

FROM  Oceana: Protecting the World's Oceans

ACTION

Healthy oceans need their top predators. The international commissions in charge of tuna fisheries is meeting RIGHT NOW and our representatives need to hear from you. Speak up before it is too late.

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INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

As the oceans' top predators, sharks and bluefin tuna are integral to maintaining healthy ocean ecosystems, keeping other populations in balance.

But decades of overfishing and shark finning have left shark and tuna in a dire situation. Some shark populations have dropped by 99%. The BP oil disaster couldn't have happened in a worse place or time - the Gulf of Mexico is one of two spawning grounds for Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Healthy oceans need their top predators. The international commissions in charge of tuna fisheries is meeting RIGHT NOW and our representatives need to hear from you. Speak up before it is too late.

The demand for sharks and bluefin tuna is driving populations towards extinction. Their depletion is the result of decades of neglect by fisheries managers. Without immediate and proper international management, we will empty the oceans of these top predators and vastly change the oceans as we know them today

At this special meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), I hope to see US and EU representatives take significant steps at ICCAT and at home to protect some of the oceans' top predators, sharks and tuna.

Shark protections:

• Prohibit the capture of endangered and vulnerable species, including hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and common thresher sharks.
• Establish science-based, precautionary catch limits for other commonly caught species, including shortfin mako and blue sharks.
• Require sharks to be landed whole, with their fins still naturally attached.

Tuna protections: Suspend the bluefin tuna fishery until a system can be put into place to:

• Recover the bluefin tuna population.
• Stop illegal fishing.
• Protect spawning areas in the Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean.

Thank you for everything you do for animals!