Our team brings you "Personal notes from the field", " Tales from the High Seas" and important news and information concerning sharks and shark diving from around the world.
The Team
Lawrence Groth CEO, Special Projects Director, Lover of Sharks
James Moskito President, Expedition Leader, Master Diver
Mary O'Malley Photographer, Shark Advocate, Crime Fighting Super Hero
The Team Blog
Primarily we will use this blog to keep our friends updated on our adventures and projects when we are out in the field either at sea or somewhere along the way. These posts will be full of funny stories and crazy stuff that happens to us along the way.
However we will also share news and important information with our readers.
We take this aspect very seriously!
In order to differentiate our blog with some of the other blogs out there, we promise to always be fair and honest when we post such information.
The state of Hawaii is celebrating its brand new "Shark Fin Ban" legislation that took effect on July 1.
Kelly Hu
"I'm here to encourage other Asian Americans to help end the demand by talking, blogging and tweeting about this bill and encouraging their friends to support the bills in their areas prohibiting the sale and possession of shark fins as we have here," said Kelly Hu. "The way to stop shark finning all together is to stop the demand for the product."
I would like to send out a BIG THANK YOU! to my good friend Mike Shutello for recruiting the very talented and lovely Kelly Hu to join our conservation efforts in both Hawaii and California.
Sorry for being absent the last few days but I have been on the move constantly and it has been difficult to get online and post all the recent happenings.
3000 miles down and still on the road!
Shark Conservation Banquet last Saturday in Long Beach, CA.
It was an awesome gathering of all the local shark conservation NGO's. Special guests: Wyland, Stan Waterman, Senator Clayton Hee of Hawaii and Stefanie Brendal of Shark Allies.
Ill be posting updates on all these events and more very soon!
Congratulations and a job well done to all the Shark fans in Hawaii. The herculean efforts by Stefanie Brendal of Shark Allies and numerous supporters has paid off with ground breaking shark conservation legislation being passed. From Stef:
Hi everyone,
By now the news has traveled around the globe.
The vote was a unanimous "Yes" in the Senate. Then we received word that Rep. Karamatsu was walking the floor of the house trying to convince House members to vote "No".
It was very suspenseful the whole afternoon. We had to wait a long time for the bill to come up on the agenda. When it did, Karamatsu jumped up and grabbed the microphone and held a 15 min monolog on how bad this bill was, trying to convince everyone that all stakeholders were against this bill including the fishermen, DLNR, all Chinese, and of course that it would be bad for the ocean, because (I quote) "too little predators in the ocean aren't good, but too many aren't either", and then followed the typical explanation that we have to make sure that there aren't too many sharks because we will loose too many fish.... you get the idea!
Rep McKelvey was awesome. He stood up and countered all the lies with the truth. Rep Morita and Rep Belatti also stood up and countered the arguments. I had the distinct feeling that the members of the house were fed up with Karamatsu.
Finally it came to the vote, and everyone voted "Yes" except for Karamatsu. There were a few members that said they had reservations and they would submit written comments, but they still voted "Yes". To say that I am relieved and happy is an under statement. It hasn't really sunk in though. For the rest of the day the feeling of resentment and shock about Karamatsu's behavior lingered on.
Now the bill is off to the Governor. We don't anticipate that she would veto the bill, but you never know. A veto could be overturned by a majority vote in the Senate and House.
On a side note: Royal Gardens Restaurant just took shark fin soup off their menu. The owner of this restaurant was also the owner of RC International, the company that had the container loads of fins at the harbor. The hidden camera footage I gave the news, of him peddling fins to a film crew, was so embarrassing to the owner that he has relocated the container and has taken soup off his menu.
Vicky Cayetano also made sure he knew that her and all her influential friends would go on a silent boycott of his establishment if he didn't stop his dealings.
Thank you for Tango Productions for letting me use the footage.
Thanks again to all of you for helping us make this happen.
Happy Earth Day to All Well, here we go! Our first post. We have purposely chosen to start this blog on Earth Day April 22, 2010 to celebrate our successes over the last decade and to share a new and promising decade with all of our friends from around the world. Currently our Team is scattered to the four winds:
Heidi Derosa
Heidi is stuck in London this week due to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption. She was returning from her Red Sea diving expedition and was grounded there by the complete commercial aviation shutdown in Europe. We wish her all the luck in getting home safely and soon. Hiedi will have some good stories from this trip I am sure.
Andy Casagrande Andy is currently on assignment in the Bahamas on a documentary film shoot.
Erick Higuera Erick is on the Solmar V diving at the Revillagigedos Islands. His season dive report will be coming soon.
Bobby McNerney Bob is back home in San Pedro, CA and just returned from a trip to Tiger Beach on the Shearwater with Jimmy Abernethy. Bobby will be heading back out very soon for a Oceanic White tip trip with Jimmy in early May. James Moskito James is back at SDIHQ "West" in the SF Bay area after a very successful Nor Cal coast dive trip. Save us some Abalone Dude!
Mary O'Malley Mary has been super busy working on Shark Safe campaigns since her recent trip to Indonesia last month. Mary has been working diligently writing letters and emails in support of The Hawaii SB 2169 bill to ban sale, possession, distribution of shark fins and all shark harvest in Hawaii.
SB 2169 passed the Conference session with a unanimous YES vote on Tuesday 4/21. Without a doubt, this bill would have never got off the ground without the Herculean efforts of Stephanie Brendal who has been on the forefront of shark conservation in Hawaii. Our friend Steph is also the founder Shark Allies around the globe. Lawrence Groth am currently at SDIHQ "East" preparing for my annual migration back to the west coast. I will be driving across the USA in early May to arrive in time for the Long Beach Scuba Show May 15 &16 at the Long Beach Convention Center. On May 24th I will be departing for Cabo San Lucas to join Erick and all my amigos on the Solmar V for a 9 day trip to the Revillagigedos Islands. Upon my return from that trip I will be embarking on a massive 3 year filming project, documenting the natural history of White Sharks. I will be spending a great deal of time diving and filming in southern California prior to the start of the 2010 Isla Guadalupe white shark season. I will be posting regular reports along the way to keep you all up to date on this epic project. I am sorry that I cannot say very much else about the project at the moment due to nondisclosure agreements. So just stay tuned for some very exciting posts and incredible adventure stories from The Team! A personal note: This blog has been a long time coming. I personally have been turned off of blogging by certain persons who have no scruples and that think they can just put anything up on the internet without any sense of honesty or morality. This unethical "BLOOSER" (My own word :) has been left on their own for far too long. They have taken advantage of the fact that most people believe everything they read on their blog. Most ethical people would not write anything but the truth and thus their readers automatically believe that whatever they read must be true, because it is posted on a blog and viewed by everyone. We have had enough of this BS! Beware little man.... Read more...
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