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Sign the petition to stop shark finning in New Zealand!
Painted as predatory, blood-thirsty creatures in headlines and horror films, sharks are one of the world’s most misrepresented creatures. Long-lived and slow to mature and breed, sharks are incredibly vulnerable to over-fishing. Some sharks don’t reach sexual maturity until the age of twenty-five.
Sharks are commonly “accidentally” caught on long-lines in New Zealand tuna fisheries (some lines stretch to up to 100 kilometres and carry thousands of hooks), and finned, with the rest of their bodies dumped at sea.
New Zealand’s long-line tuna fisheries catch three times as many sharks as tuna. Most sharks caught are blue sharks – a threatened species – and substantial decline in their numbers has been observed.
In order to stop the decimation of our shark population Forest & Bird believes we must follow Australia, the USA and the EU and make it mandatory that sharks must be landed whole as a disincentive to stop the lucrative and wasteful business of shark finning.
Please, please, please – if you care about New Zealand’s marine life sign this petition – https://secure.forestandbird.org.nz/pledge/sharkspledge.asp
