Seven Network Perth: Please Air Gordon Ramsay's documentary 'Shark Bait'.

  • by: Ross Weir
  • recipient: Seven West Media boss Tim Worner

Dear Mister Worner.

We the under signed would like to request that your Western Australian television network channel Seven screen 'Shark bait', A documentary starring renowned and controversial Chef Gordon Ramsay. This short documentary takes a stark look at the reality of one of the worlds most destructive fishing practices on the planet to date....Shark Finning.

Shark finning is currently the biggest global threat to our oceans. Being an ocean going city currently flooded with negative media coverage and hype in regard to this important species, We think it is high time the Western Australian public see some brilliant media coverage of the other side of these animals and the difficulties the species faces heading into the future.

Shark Finning is the practice of removing mass numbers of sharks fins from sharks at sea, often while still alive and discarding the carcass. This is done to feed an ever increasing demand for what used to be a delicacy reserved only for Chinese and Japanese Emperors in the past. This dish is now affordable for the majority and the harvesting of fins for this soup is done purely in the name of profit as the carcass is worth next to nothing and often discarded at sea still alive.  This is an illegal, black market trade, rivalled only in profit by the illegal drug and arms trades.

Put simply this dish is rapidly causing the decimation of shark species globally with many shark speceies experiencing a decline of up to 90% and verging on the very brink of extinction.
Global shark populations are today estimated to be at 10% of what they where some 30 years ago.

Sharks are a species our oceans and consequently our own kind can not live without.

Very few people have sound knowledge of the fact that these oceanic predators are what is known as a 'Keystone' Species, and keep our oceans alive and healthy.

If sharks where to be removed from the worlds oceans this would have a 'flow on effect' that would disrupt the entire oceanic food web in ways we can not even begin to yet imagine or understand. We simply do not know enough about these 430 million year old ancient predators.

It is also little known fact that our planet simply can not survive without our oceans and the critical role these animals play in a complex proccess which occurs within the oceans seeing planet earth provided with up to 80% of our oxygen.

Previous estimates of global shark overfishing have been stated as at an average of 75 million sharks per year, with this figure being estimated to possibly be at a maximum of 104 million.
Recently released stats now put this at now as high as 273 million.

We the undersigned hope that your television network will air this documentary as it is informative,engaging,interesting and most importantly focusses on a very important global issue with a massive potential to severly impact the future of ocean loving Western Australians.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely the undersigned.

Petition created by:
Ross Weir
Western Australians For Shark Conservation- WASC

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