Sharklife

Vital Stats

Taylor D

West Burke, VT

  • people helped1195
  • People Doing It 8

The Problem

I am trying to educate people about shark finning and how they can help put an end to it, as well as trying to end it myself. 50 to 73 million sharks are killed every year for their fins. The fins are sliced off while the shark is still alive and the body is thrown overboard where the shark bleeds to death, is eaten alive or suffocates. It can take hours and sometimes even days for the shark to die. This horrid practice is effecting the ocean ecosystem greatly. As the population of the apex predator falls it causes a cascade effect in the rest of the ecosystem. The animals that sharks eat populations will grow and become overpopulated (skates for example) and the animals that they eat such as oysters will start to fall towards extinction. Already areas have seen the effects on the oyster populations.

Plan of Action

As a senior at my high school you are required to complete a project called Capstone in order to graduate. You can do your Capstone on anything that interests you and that will some how benefit a community. I started working on my capstone this past summer and decided that I wanted to raise money by selling shirts that I designed against shark finning and would donate the money to an organization that is working to end shark finning. I hope to sell these shirts on my website eventually but for the moment I am selling them at my school for two weeks and to family and friends. I also talk about shark finning whenever I can and tell people how they can help.
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Animals
Environment

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