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.
Posts
