Fearing a world without sharks

G U E S T   V I E W

Rob Stewart is the director of the documentary Sharkwater. (Douglas Braun Photo)

In August 1999, I was a 19-year-old photographer on assignment to photograph sharks in the Galapagos Islands. Instead of filming the creatures in all their majesty, I wound up releasing dying sharks from illegally-set long lines.

These fishing lines, with baited hooks, can extend 80 to 90 kilometres in the ocean. The experience launched me on a journey to uncover whey there was such a huge demand for sharks, even in the most protected national parks on Earth.

The simple answer was the growing demand for shark-fin soup. Through much of Asia, shark-fin soup is a symbol of wealth and is served as a sign of respect. A single pound of shark fin can sell for more than $300 US.

Shark bodies traditionally don’t have substantial value, so fishermen in search of higher profits started finning—discarding the bodies and keeping only the fins, wasting 96 per cent of the animal.

An elephant falls for ivory and the world is up in arms. But 100 million sharks die each year and no one bats an eye, largely because of the public’s perception of sharks.

Sharks are viewed by most as dangerous predators which, if removed from the planet, would make the world a safer place. The reality, which most scuba divers know, is that sharks are mostly benign to humans, and are incredibly important animals to life on Earth.

A Silvertip Shark, photographed by Rob Stewart on the Great Barrier Reef.

In 2002, I set out to make Sharkwater, a film that would bring the public closer to sharks than ever before. I thought that, if people could understand them and see them as beautiful, necessary animals, they would fight for their protection. I had no idea it would become a human drama spanning four years and 15 countries, and nearly ended my life.

I joined Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in Los Angeles. Watson’s ship, Ocean Warrior, was going to Cocos, Costa Rica by the invitation of the Costa Rican president, to deter poaching in an ill-protected marine reserve.

This journey shifted the focus of the project from a beautiful underwater film to a drama rife with corrupt governments, attempted-murder charges and machinegun chases, all because of the demand for shark fins.

The late Ransom Myers and Boris Worm from Dalhousie University suggest that Atlantic shark populations have declined as much as 89 per cent since 1972. Populations of great sharks such as the great white shark, hammerhead and bull shark have declined dramatically.

Further studies estimate large oceanic predator populations to be down 90 per cent in the last 50 years.

Our failure to protect the oceans is largely because what’s out of sight is out of mind. We don’t see underwater exploitation the same way we see it on land.

We need a renewed view of the ocean—not as a toxic waste dump that can be exploited to collapse, but as a source for life and an essential part of the Earth as an ecosystem.

This story originally ran in Dal News, November 19, 2008.