Off the menu: billboards in China to save sharks

Monday, 07 December 2009 00:00

A billboard on display in Beijing last year A billboard draws attention

Each year, the fins of 73 million sharks are sold in markets in Hong Kong with most being shipped to China for soup - but shark populations can’t sustain the rate at which they are being killed and are being fished to extinction.

American charity Shark Savers and WildAid are putting up billboards in Shanghai and Beijing that tell consumers of shark fin soup about the damage finning is having on shark populations. Each billboard costs $100 USD (about £60) to put up for a year and DIVE is hoping readers and clubs will support the campaign - let's see if we can reach 50 billboards. DIVE has kicked off the campaign by buying the first DIVE billboard.

Michael Skoletsky of Shark Savers said: 'A lot can be done on the marine protection side of shark conservation, but nothing can be solved if we don't work on the demand and consumption side - which is shark fin soup.

‘We might assume that people who eat shark fin soup don't care, but in reality they don't know the issues - for example contamination issues. Shark is high in heavy metals, including mercury, which is toxic. And most people don't know that finning is wiping out sharks and that this affects the balance of ocean ecosystems. Some don’t even know that shark is in the soup because in Chinese it translates as fish fin soup.'

Shark Savers and WildAid are aiming to put up 1,000 billboards featuring Yao Ming – a Chinese basketball star and the athlete who carried the Chinese flag at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. As well as putting up billboards, the charities are running TV adverts and launching a website telling people about the toxins found in sharks and the decline in shark numbers worldwide.

A similar campaign was run last year and 82 per cent of those who saw the adverts said they would stop eating the soup. This is a great opportunity for you or your dive club to make a difference to demand for shark fins.


To buy a billboard, click here: