Kategorie: News
Demonstration against shark fin trade in the EU
Last Friday the citizens' initiative "Stop Finning EU" protested against the EU-wide shark fin trade. The action was organized together with Sharkproject Austria, Sea Shepherd Austria, the Association against Animal Factories (VGT) and animal protection activist Sandy P. Peng at Stephansplatz. To stop the trade with shark fins in the EU, the citizens' initiative wants to collect one million signatures.
Under the slogan "Stop Finning - Stop the Trade" they protested together against the bloody shark fin trade in the EU. Among them also animal welfarist Sandy P. Peng. "The sharks are cut off the fins on the open sea, and then thrown back into the sea. With full consciousness and without possibility for locomotion, they drown and bleed to death on the sea-bottom. A hardly imaginable cruelty to innocent living beings", Peng says to consider. "Sharks have such a great influence on our entire ecosystem," says Peng. Sharks, as leaders of the food chain, are an elementary part of the marine ecosystem because they keep fish stocks in balance. "If the sharks die, the oceans die!" (Andy Cobb +19.10.2020)
About 60 people defied the bad weather to draw attention to the "Finning". As the world's number one shark fishery, illegal finning is above all a European problem. Every year almost 3,500 tons of shark fins are exported from the EU. Especially in Asia these are considered a prestigious ingredient for shark fin soup. Although the process of cutting them off is officially illegal in the EU, the trade in them is still legal. The citizens' initiative now wants to stop this. One million signatures in the EU are necessary to confront the European Parliament with the matter. On www.stop-finning-eu.org you can support the citizens' initiative.
See also (german):
Citizens' Initiative Stop Finning
Shark protection in EU a farce?
Claims of "Stop Finning EU":
* An end to the trade with shark fins in Europe
* The "Fins Naturally Attached" regulation in the European Union will be extended to the export, import and transit of sharks and rays.
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About Sharkproject
Sharkproject is a species conservation organization founded in 2002, which is committed to the protection of over 500 shark species and the marine ecosystem. All employees work purely on a voluntary basis and bear all fixed costs. Thus, all donations directly benefit the projects and the associated intensive media and information work. Besides the umbrella organization Sharkproject International, there are currently country organizations in Austria, Germany and Switzerland as well as embassies in Poland and South Africa.
Furthermore there are far-reaching international cooperations, for example with the non-profit NGO "Pretoma" in Costa Rica, the Florida International University and the Stellenbosch University. Since 2016 Sharkproject is a full member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world's largest network for environmental and species protection.
Further information:
www.sharkproject.org/