Happy Shark Day!
Happy Shark Day!
Today’s all about spreading awareness about shark conservation.
As a fellow Canadian, I was so proud of the work that Rob Stewart was doing towards ocean conservation and how he was educating the public on a greatly misunderstood creature - the Shark. I was fascinated by his first film Sharkwater (2006), and basically pestered everyone around me to watch it, going so far as to buy hard copies to give to people as gifts (yes I’m one of those people). I did the same with his film Revolution (2012), and would probably have done the same with his final film Sharkwater: Extinction (2018) if there were any hard copies, but there aren’t any so all I can do is pester you all “Watch his films! It will change the way you look at sharks forever.”
Sharks have been on this planet longer than most other species, the earliest known sharks dating back to more than 420 million years ago, with the modern-day sharks that we’re familiar with showing up a 100 million years ago, meaning they’ve survived 5 mass extinction events, and yet over the past 20-30 years we’ve killed over 90% of their population. This is largely due to the cruel practice of finning, which is when sharks are caught and then merely definned, either while dead or alive, and then have their bodies thrown overboard where they’ll eventually drown. All this for what? A soup? For sport? It seems a bit pointless and short-sighted. We already know the oceans are in trouble and now we’re removing another key component to the survival of the ecosystem.
Comic info -
The reason we chose a Scalloped Hammerhead for our comic was because they have the most fins and are therefore the most sought after by fishermen; even though hammerheads have never once attacked a human and are actually very shy creatures.
Rob Stewart knew that the way to make people care about sharks was to make people realize that our survival as a species relies on the survival of the oceans which depends on the survival of the sharks. This is probably why his book is titled “Save The Humans”, and not “Save The Sharks”, even though that’s the goal. To get people to care about sharks, he also knew that he needed to educate people on our misconception of the nature of sharks.
The film Sharkwater was never going to have the instant impact that a movie such as “Blackfish” would, where people could immediately show their outrage by boycotting places like SeaWorld. Sharkwater falls more under the category of the film “The Cove” where we see a group of innocent animals (Dolphins) being slaughtered and we feel helpless to stop it.
The oceans are vast, and therefore hard to monitor. There’s also a lot of money to be made with selling shark fins, and it’s hard to convince local small fishermen about the importance of the survival of sharks when they have their own survival to worry about.
Sharks are also not really the most cute-and-cuddly of creatures. Everyone wants to swim with dolphins they’re friendly looking creatures right? (Dolphins just have a better PR team), sharks not so much… tell people you want to swim with sharks and they think you’re crazy. But all wild animals are dangerous; elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers…and yet people are willing to help protect them, why not sharks? It’s not as if sharks attack more people than those mentioned earlier, if anything their numbers are less. Just look at Elephants, elephants kill up to 600 people a year, while sharks only kill about 4 people a year.
So the film Sharkwater was Rob Stewart’s attempt to give sharks a new reputation, it was their good PR movie. He became the face and voice for sharks - and one of their greatest allies, advocating for their protection.
I still remember the day I heard the news about his disappearance and then death. As someone who greatly admired him and the work he was doing, it was disheartening to know that one of the biggest proponents for shark and ocean conservation was now gone.
My hope is that there are people who will take up the cause where he left off, and continue his legacy because the world needs more Rob Stewarts. And like Rob Stewart said “Conservation is the Preservation of Human Life on Earth”, so we’re all in this together.
To find out more about the cause and how to help you can go to the Rob Stewart Sharkwater Foundation website for more information.
~ Stay Obsessed
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