Protect The Sharks

A lone zebra shark in a Dubai aquarium has prompted scientific interest after laying eggs for the fourth year in a row which hatch into healthy offspring.

Zebedee, who lives in the Burj aAl Arab hotel’s aquarium, has never had access to a male shark but that has not stopped her producing numerous live offspring.

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Olympic Village (Greece): The best closure of a very successful and active year for shark’s conservation was the third grade’s activities of 26th school – “Ioannis Melissanidis and Fani Chalkia at Olympic Village” in Athens. Our friend and member of “Protect the Sharks Foundation” Andreas Maragos, suggested to expand ESW-2011 activities for kids inside a classroom, and made the necessary contact with the enthusiastic teacher of 3rd grade, Karakosta Vasiliki.

After sending lots of material with docs, pdfs with info about sharks, images and color me pages, the teacher organized a week dedicated to sharks, with actions, paper constructions, tons of shark draws, the design of a t-shirt and a the most touching letter we have ever received…!!

“Dear shark defenders,

we are the students of class C1 from the 26th Acharnon Primary School. We learned about you and that you try to save sharks and tell people about the endangered shark species.

We saw video of fishermen who illegally put sharks on boats, cut their fins and throw them back into the sea. We were impressed when we saw the diver to tender the shark, to touch her nose and lift her with her hands.

We learned about and draw several shark species. We made stickers to show you that we the children care about sharks. If you want you can share them with other children. We created a graphic and printed it on a t-shirt which we offer you with our love. We expect to hear from you soon!

With shark-kisses,

The Petit Allies Titus, Theodore, Mary, Komnenos, Angelos, Hermes, Elizabeth, Angelos, Dimitrios, Agathi, Vivian, Michael, Sotiris, Nikos, Ellie, Nefeli, Georgia, Chris, Evie and our wonderful teacher Karakosta Vasiliki!

P.S.
We forgot to tell that our English teacher taught us words related to sharks and we put those words into clouds in our drawings just imagining what shark would like to tell to humans. Bye for now!”

All those sweet things along with a beautiful set of photographs in a cd where sent to us in a magic package. No words to describe the feelings jumped out of the package when opened! We have 19 new enthusiastic allies and their captain!!!

Photos of our allies and their captain,  can be found here or here.

The schools website can be found here.

Rabea (miss Rabi) Iatridou and

Nicholas Samaras

Pátras (Greece) During the launch of the 5th European Shark Week events in the town of Patras from 21 to 23 of October, we made many new friends for sharks that signed our petition to push the European Union (EU) fisheries ministers to protect sharks from overexploitation and finning – the wasteful practice of slicing off a shark’s fins and discarding the body at sea…

• Day one – Friday 21st of October we had programmed the kid’s events. While drawing happy sharks with millions of colors, we talked about sharks, how they look, what they eat, how they swim, explained the differences  between species and how many of them are alive in the sea in order to make the children understand that many shark species are endangered and are threatened of extinction and need to be protected. Children are very enthusiastic and their drawings made us realize how easily they can learn and how important is that they don’t have that learned fear for sharks as the adults do. We had fantastic drawings of basking sharks, great whites and all kinds of sharks especially the threatened species!

• Day two, had in program a more typical character with the signature selection, the presentation and the screening of documentaries but the discussion during the presentation became the cause to dispel many myths about sharks. At the end all the attendants were informed about the endangered species, the sharks living in Greek waters, the meaning of shark fining and the enormous quantities of shark fins ending in Hong Kong to be consumed as shark fin soup… Some of the questions were like “bull’s eye” hits, so straight and so clear that we hoped that some Fishery Ministers should be there with us to answer… We hope that our new friends contribution will be added to the PUSH for
  • a complete ban on removing shark fins at sea,
  • Shark and ray catch limits based on scientific advice and the precautionary approach
  • EU and national protections for endangered shark and ray species

• On day three, we met on a beautiful spot of the Corinthian gulf to dedicate a dive to sharks even though Greece is not famous for shark diving! Many divers participated to the dive even though the weather conditions were not the more suitable.

We want to give our warm regards and thanks to all those that helped us organize the ESW events, especially Mr. Konstantinos Milionis for his enthusiasm and the Scuba Diving Club “OCEANOS” for the invitation and the hosting!

Click here or here for more photos.

The petition is still available on-line, so sign it here quickly if  you didn’t yet.

Το ίδρυμα για τη προστασία του καρχαρία Protect the Sharks Foundation και ο Σύλλογος Αυτοδυτών Αχαΐας “OCEANOS” σας προσκαλούν να συμμετάσχετε στο τριήμερο εκδηλώσεων για τον εορτασμό της Ευρωπαϊκής Εβδομάδας Καρχαρία που θα πραγματοποιηθούν από 21 έως 23 Οκτωβρίου 2011 στην Πάτρα, στα πλαίσια των εκδηλώσεων που οργανώνονται σε δεκάδες Ευρωπαϊκές πόλεις υπό την αιγίδα της συμμαχίας για τον καρχαρία Shark Alliance.

Το τριήμερο εκδηλώσεων θα περιλαμβάνει εκδηλώσεις για παιδιά και ενήλικες, προβολές ντοκιμαντέρ, παρουσίαση και συζήτηση και κατάδυση αφιερωμένη στους καρχαρίες. Ελάτε μαζί μας στον εορτασμό της Ευρωπαϊκής Εβδομάδας Καρχαρία και βοηθήστε μας να πιέσουμε την Ε.Ε. να κλείσει οριστικά τα νομικά τα κενά στην απαγόρευση της αφαίρεσης των πτερυγίων και τους υπουργούς να κάνουν πράξη τις δεσμεύσεις του Σχεδίου δράσης της ΕΕ για τον καρχαρία

Αναλυτικά το πρόγραμμα:

Παρασκευή 21/10/2011
Έκθεση Υ/Β Φωτογραφίας, προβολές ντοκιμαντέρ “Gimme a Hug”, επισκέψεις σχολείων, δραστηριότητες για παιδιά, ζωγραφική, χειροτεχνίες και δημιουργία κάρτας με θέμα τη θάλασσα και τον καρχαρία, φωτογράφηση με τον “Ζαχαρία”, ανάρτηση των παιδικών έργων και κλήρωση δώρου.

Σάββατο 22/10/2011
Έκθεση Υ/Β Φωτογραφίας
Συγκέντρωση Υπογραφών και Δημιουργία Καρτών με μηνύματα
Προβολές ντοκιμαντέρ
Παρουσίαση
Ανοιχτή συζήτηση
Κλήρωση δώρου

Κυριακή 23/10/2011
Κατάδυση αφιερωμένη στην Ευρωπαϊκή Εβδομάδα Καρχαρία
Υποβρύχια Φωτογράφηση με το πανό της εκδήλωσης»

Σας προσκαλούμε όλους στις τριήμερες εκδηλώσεις της Πανευρωπαϊκής Εβδομάδας Καρχαρία για να γνωριστούμε και να μας βοηθήσετε να προστατέψουμε τον καρχαρία. Ελπίζουμε να σας δούμε όλους στη Πάτρα

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“Protect the Sharks Foundation in cooperation with the Association of Achaia Divers “OCEANOS” invite you to participate to our 3-day event that will take place from 21 to 23 October in Patrai, in order to celebrate European Shark Week 2011 together with dozens of parallel events organized in many European cities under the auspices of Shark Alliance.
The weekend events will include activities for young and adults, documentary screenings, presentations and discussions dedicated to diving and sharks.

Join us in European Shark Week celebration and help us push the EU to ensure loopholes in the finning ban are finally closed and ministers live up to the commitments of the EU shark Plan of Action

Detailed Program:

Friday 21/10/2011
Underwater Photography exhibition, screenings of “Gimme a Hug” documentary, school visits, children’s activities, arts, crafts and card creation on the theme of sea and sharks, Shooting photos with “Zachary”, suspension of works and children’s prize lottery.

Saturday 22/10/2011
Underwater Photography exhibition
Collection of signatures and creating cards with messages
Documentary screenings
Presentation
Open Discussion
Lottery of a “shark” prize

Sunday 23/10/2011
Diving dedicated to European Shark Week
Underwater shooting with the ESW event banner”

We kindly like to invite you all, to visit this event and meet us there to help us protect the sharks.

Hope to see you in Patrai!

Despite EU rules to protect it, a rare porbeagle shark was auctioned last week at Scheveningen, in the Netherlands. The nearly three meter long shark was caught in the Southern North Sea and sold to a fishmonger from Katwijk who put the animal on the menu.

Read more …  and sign here the petition.

NASSAU, Bahamas, July 5, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Sharks in The Bahamas can breathe more easily after the nation’s government announced today that all commercial shark fishing in the approximately 630,000 square kilometers (243,244 square miles) of the country’s waters is now prohibited.

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Basking sharks, one of the largest fish on Earth, are notoriously hard to find, despite their colossal size and unmistakable silhouette. Now, scientists working in California have called on satellite technology to help them track these mysterious and scarce sharks.

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Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead said the Scottish Government intended to introduce a protection order for the species, collectively known as elasmobranchs. Subject to parliamentary approval, this will give greater protection for 26 vulnerable and endangered sharks, skates and rays, including tope, spurdog and common skate.

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Washington DC (USA) – NOAA’s Fisheries Service today launched a voluntary program to encourage commercial and recreational fishermen to safely release Atlantic shortfin mako sharks alive and report the releases to NOAA for posting on an online map.

The new program is designed to encourage the conservation of North Atlantic shortfin mako sharks. Scientific research shows many of these sharks are being caught and kept, damaging the long-term sustainability of the population.  The most recent assessment of North Atlantic shorfin makos found that the population had declined about 50 percent from the 1950s.

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Canberra (Australia) – Public Consultation Draft

The draft Shark-plan 2 has been released for public consultation and you are invited to provide comment.  Submissions on Shark-plan 2 are open until 5 pm AEST Friday, 15 July 2011.

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