Meanjeanster.com readers, please come and check me out at www.sweetchicstyle.com!!  It’s a similar look and basically the same idea as far as content goes.  I hope to see you there and I look forward to writing more blogs!

thanks,

Jean

For the majority of my life I’ve been obsessed with sharks. I saw the movie Jaws at a young age maybe when I was 5 when a babysitter was watching me. Though I know now in retrospect that I was too young to have watched such a movie, it nevertheless made a huge impact on my life.

I would incessantly talk about sharks, especially the Great White [Carcharodon Carcharias]. I’ve read literally every single book I could find at Barnes and Noble and Borders about sharks. When I was in intermediate school I was fortunate enough to meet two people who filmed documentaries about sharks for National Geographic. They’re also hailed as shark “experts” who really enlightened me and expanded my fear and obsession of sharks and turned it into an awareness and passion for the animal.

Ron and Valerie Taylor are two amazing people who have been diving with sharks for years and they gave me a video of a great white shark documentary. Since then I’ve been educating myself about sharks and the cruel truths about people who poach and fin them for profit.

In the last 10 years, information and knowledge about sharks has grown exponentially. There are tons more shark videos and scientists out there observing and helping sharks. Perhaps my favorite is the videos of Great Whites leaping from the water off of the South African Coast. Despite the videos and educating people of the beauty of sharks and their importance on the world’s environment and even human survival, the poaching of sharks has kept growing.

Below I have videos and more pics of sharks, their slaughter, and how to educate ourselves and help save them.  There are also links to other sites so make sure you read more!

Though there are still shark attacks, most are “discovery” bites where the sharks will mistake a human for a fish or take a bite to see what it is. A sad fact for me is that living in Hawaii and having a good knowledge on sharks makes me sometimes weary of entering the water. It’s mostly my panic attacks that get the best of me on days where instead of having fun, I’m looking out for tiger sharks. Even though I’m obsessed with sharks and learning about them I still think I’d be too scared to swim with them.  To go into the ocean means that a person has to know what risks their are, show respect for the ocean, and be mindful that there are animals in there without the deductive reasoning that humans have.

Since the movie Jaws, Great Whites have been killed in such high numbers that countries like the USA and Australia (among others) have laws protecting the shark because it is an endangered species. That hasn’t stopped poachers from Indonesia, China, and Japan (just to name a few)  from slaughtering these beautiful animals.  This is their ocean, their home…we have to stop invading it and punish them for doing what is in their nature to do.  Not that I condone attacks on humans but when we enter their home, we take a certain risk knowing that we are splashing around in a place we don’t know much about.

It’s sickening to see videos of them catching a shark, cutting its fins and throwing it back in the ocean alive to drown and die. The reason for these poachers is the growing number of people who want to eat shark fin soup, especially in Asia where it gets sold for $150 a bowl. WTF.

It’s not just sharks that are the targets of poaching and brutal killing, dolphins and whales both get illegally murdered every day. I’m still doing research on the slaughter of dolphins and will later post a topic about that.

Anyhow, if people stopped eating the soup, the need for the fins would dissipate and the slaughter of sharks would no longer be profitable.

We can save the sharks. We really can. There are so many websites with information and ways to help.

You can see them below where I’ll post links.

Here’s a video made by GenArt about shark finning and the film Sharkwater and how the makers of it have made it their lives purpose to show the beauty and grace of sharks and save them from ignorance, poaching, and extinction. If they die the whole balance of the ocean gets thrown off. If the ocean doesn’t function it will die and then so will we. It’s a circle of life that we have to keep in balance.

Here are the links I promised, check them out. You don’t need to do much to make a change. Awareness and education is half the battle.

www.sharkwater.com

www.sharktrust.org

www.wildaid.org

www.sharks.org

www.bite-back.com

http://www.jawshark.com/great_white_conservation_jawshark.html

It’s no wonder that people like Peter Benchley, the author of the book JAWS that inspired the famous movie, stand up to help save the sharks.

Remember, it’s their ocean…not ours….it’s their home and when we enter it we should do so with respect. How would you react to someone walking in your home and doing as they please?

Help me raise awareness to help save the sharks.  We don’t need to fear them.  We are the predator, people kill millions of sharks a year.  We need to stop endangering the species and respect their importance in our ocean’s ecosystem.

Where I come from, the shark is respected and revered.  They’re really beautiful creatures who don’t deserve the stigma they have.  This big great white was taped a couple years ago in Hawaiian waters, she didn’t even bother the cage divers or the daring man who swam next to her.

ignorance is unacceptable, educate yourself and help save these creatures that keep our ecosystem in balance!