TOP PROJECTS FOR SAVING SHARKS

1. Reporting The Danger Sharks Face In Scholary Journals

In 2008, researcher Francesco Feretti and his colleagues published a startling and important survey of shark population declines in the Mediterranean Sea. Feretti and his co-authors pored over all available data on Mediterranean shark populations over the past two centuries.
By arranging all the data in order the researcher made the world aware of the sharks in danger so that the people could help in saving sharks.

2. Lobbying Policymakers to Protect Sharks

Groups like the Pew Charitable Trusts fund and employ lobbyists who persuade lawmakers to support legislation that create sanctions against shark fishing, provide enforcement of protective laws and offer incentives to protect sharks.

One sterling example of the work of lobbying groups like the Pew Charitable Trusts is the U.S. Shark Conservation Act of 2009. This law would make removing a shark's fin - even one from a dead shark or having a shark fin aboard a vessel illegal.

3. Recording Shark Attacks

Keeping files on shark attacks to aid shark conservation efforts may seem counterintuitive, but recording hard data on the number and circumstances of shark attacks around the world seems to have done just that. The University of Florida's Museum of Natural History (FMNH) houses and helps to compile the Shark Attack Files.
For example, the Shark Attack Files show that in the 10 years between 1999 and 2009, there were 51 fatal shark attacks throughout the entire world.

4. Going Underwater for Sharks

Some shark conservationists do their best work on dry land. Others literally like to get their feet wet.
Conservation groups on the high seas have a lot of work to do.

 Purse seine nets, for example, are long walls of netting that hang up to 300 meters (984 feet) underwater and are attached to floats on the surface. These nets are drawn together at the bottom, trapping everything within them. When fishermen come to haul the nets up, they take everything — sharks included. This process is called bycatching; it's an unfortunate, but legal, byproduct of fishing. However, some conservationists will go underwater to free trapped sharks from opened nets that have yet to be hauled.

By harassing illegal fishermen and overseeing legal operations, shark conservationists in the water try to create breathing room for endangered sharks.

5. Battling Shark Fin Soup on Land

Shark fin soup, considered a delicacy in Asia, Australia and Hawaii, is responsible for the removal of millions of kilograms of shark fins annually. While numerous conservation efforts focus on cutting off supplies of the main ingredient in shark fin soup, at least one trains its eye on the demand side.

For the past few years, residents of China — one of the biggest consumers of the dish

— have been treated to a grassroots public service campaign that alerts them to the environmental havoc that bowl of soup can cause. Basketball star Yao Ming serves as a mouthpiece for the campaign, which aims to rid the Chinese public of its affection for shark fin soup through bus stop ads, billboards and television spots.

6. Studying Whale Sharks in Public Aquariums

Some of the largest aquariums in the world have dedicated much of their research and funding to studying and conserving the world's whale sharks. For example, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List has declared the elusive and little-understood shark species vulnerable. By studying the sharks kept in captivity, and participating in and funding research in the sharks' natural habitat, aquariums in such diverse locations as Georgia, Taiwan and Okinawa hope to protect these sharks by better understanding how humanity affects them.

By learning of the dangers humans pose to whale sharks while encountering them face to face, aquarium guests can become informed and concerned activists.

 

7. Ridding Marinas of Shark Fishing

Vacationing tourists who remove sharks from local fisheries for sport and recreation are considered inhumane by many conservationists. Getting shark meat home when home is another country is virtually impossible, and few tourists are willing to pay for the cost to have a shark mounted and shipped. Instead, a shark caught by a tourist is often used for a commemorative photo and left to rot.
In response, some shark conservationists have created a shark-free marina movement that targets flippant tourists. This tactic hits tourists where they stay by lobbying marinas and facilities attached to resorts to ban dead sharks from their docks and piers. Recreational shark fishermen may think twice before killing a shark for the photo op if they know they can't offload the carcass from their fishing boat. The tactic has appeal in that it still respects the sport of fishing; it simply encourages fishermen to catch and release.
Resorts and marinas in six different countries have banned dead sharks from their facilities as a result of this conservation movement.