Written by Jeff Mackey
Tuesday's Dan Rather Reports will present exclusive and disturbing video footage of the barbaric and inhumane practice known as "shark-finning," which is when fishers pull live sharks from the water, cut off their fins, and then dump them back into the water while still alive.
PETA's Colleen O'Brien interviewed Rather about it.
The following clips feature never-before-seen undercover video footage of just some of this shocking cruelty:
Without their fins, the sharks die a slow and agonizing death, usually from suffocation. And the practice is on the rise, feeding the public's growing appetite for shark-fin soup.
Dan Rather Reports premieres on HDNet on Tuesday, January 24, at 8 p.m. ET, with an encore at 11 p.m. ET. Tune in to learn what steps are being taken to protect these majestic animals of the sea so that they don't disappear forever.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
Some folks made Christmas merry, while others are in need of making some serious New Year's resolutions to shape up:
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
It's the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In the case of animal abusers, every so often they get done unto them just as they do. Here are this year's best stories in which the Golden Rule put its game face on:
Leg photo © iStockphoto.com/Shelly Perry Shark photo © Getty Images/Digital Vision/Carl Roessler
Looks like animal abusers might want to consider a New Year's resolution to adhere to the Golden Rule … or else.
Written by PETA
A man who was spear-fishing off Anna Maria Island in the Gulf of Mexico found out what it was like to be speared by a fish when a shark bit his left thigh. By issuing a series of biting (geddit?) ads placed in the area, PETA is using this incident to remind Floridians that the deadliest killers in the water aren't sharks—but human beings.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Sharks aren't the only animals who have been striking back:
Perhaps if animals always fought back, people might think twice about abusing them. It would save a lot of lives all around. And speaking of saving lives—maybe these surfers will always be spared from shark attacks in return for their compassionate actions.
Get ready to practice your high-fives and Bronx cheers—here's our quasi-monthly round-up of animal friends and foes:
We're spitting mad at people who have been lashing out at animals, but we've saved up some wet, sloppy puppy-dog kisses for those whose compassion is the cat's pajamas.
For up-to-the-minute info on what PETA is doing, follow us on Twitter.
If you're a regular PETA Files reader, you no doubt know that sharks' bad rap is undeserved. While there are a handful of well-publicized shark attacks around the world every year, humans pose the bigger threat—we kill about 73 million sharks annually. According to the Discovery Channel's Shark Week website, you're more likely to be bitten by another person than by a shark! In honor of Shark Week, here are five other facts about these mysterious ocean dwellers:
1. Sharks may seem to be all business, but they also have a playful side. Porbeagle sharks have been observed playing with objects floating in the water, repeatedly rolling themselves in kelp fronds, and chasing after other sharks who trailed pieces of kelp behind them.
2. Sharks work together to obtain food—and mind their manners when eating. Biologist Peter Best once saw several great whites working together to move the carcass of a partially beached whale to deeper waters so that they could eat it. Caribbean reef sharks follow a pecking order when eating, with the biggest shark eating first.
3. Frightfully fast, sharks are excellent swimmers, thanks to scales covered with tiny teeth that enable water to flow smoothly over their bodies. Several years ago, Speedo introduced a swimsuit modeled after shark skin—but the suits worked too well and were banned from major swim meets for giving swimmers an unfair advantage.
4. We don't know if great whites like Great White (ahem), but they love AC/DC. A charter boat operator in Australia has discovered that great white sharks become less aggressive when songs by AC/DC are played underwater.
5. While whale sharks can give birth to 300 babies at a time, most sharks grow and mature slowly, have long gestation periods (up to two years!), and produce few young—making these animals particularly vulnerable to overfishing.
Written by Paula Moore
If the thought of sharks makes you envision a water skier meeting his end while the Jaws theme plays, think again. The reality is that there are only a handful of shark attacks around the world each year (only a few of which prove fatal), while humans kill about 73 million sharks a year. Hopefully that number will now take a dive, as the Bahamas has banned shark fishing and made 243,000 square miles of ocean into protected territory.
So why do we kill 73 million sharks every year? It certainly isn't in self-defense. One of the main reasons is to fulfill the demand for shark-fin soup. Since only the fin is desired, sharks are dragged to the surface, their fins are cut off, and they are thrown back into the ocean to slowly die from their injuries, stress, or suffocation.
The United States, Canada, the European Union, and several other countries also have laws against shark finning. Only if compassionate people continue to decry shark fishing and refuse to purchase any shark meat or shark products (including shark cartilage supplements) will sharks be protected from the truly dangerous predators: people.
Patrons of a California pet-store chain were appalled when they saw black-tipped reef sharks displayed in small tanks. As is the case with most captive sharks, these animals were swimming into the tanks' glass walls, resulting in chronic injuries.
After PETA was alerted to the sharks' plight last summer, we convinced the chain to release one injured shark so that the animal could receive veterinary care and be given a new home; the chain also said that it would not place sharks in new stores. But after another shark was injured a couple months ago and PETA posted an action alert on its website, the pet store made the compassionate decision to release all its sharks to more species-appropriate facilities.
Sharks naturally roam for miles in the ocean. In captivity, they often exhibit neurotic behaviors as a result of stress, including repetitively swimming into the sides of their tanks. Confinement also deprives them of engaging in natural behaviors such as foraging for food, choosing mates, raising their young, and exploring reefs.
Please, don't patronize any pet stores, aquariums, or other businesses that sell live animals or use them as "props."
The U.S. banned "finning"—a practice in which fishers cut the fins off sharks and dump the still-living animals overboard to die a slow, agonizing death—back in 2000, but the ban only extended to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Now, a decade later, the Senate has finally voted to extend the ban to the Pacific.
Disappointingly, the bill does not ban the sale of shark fins in the U.S., which means that restaurants can still sell the deadly "delicacy" and thereby continue to fund the mutilation of sharks in less protected waters.
The bill now heads to the House, which has already passed similar legislation. Keep your fingers crossed that these "lame ducks" will rally to the rescue of maimed sharks in the waning days of their last session.
If pigs had fins, would the Senate throw them a lifeline too?
Written by Alisa Mullins
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If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.