CBS4 News: Group Pushes Marinas To Go "Shark-Free"
Article by Natalia Zea for CBS4 news
More than 100 million sharks are killed worldwide every year. Now, that has one group pushing a nationwide effort to get marinas to keep fishermen from hunting the animals. But not everyone is on board.
Tim O'Hare with Mark the Shark's charter fishing boat company caught nothing but small fish Friday afternoon. At least, they're small fish compared to the female tiger shark he helped catch earlier this week - a shark that weighed more than a thousand pounds.
"Most of the time they want them as a trophy for their wall. It's the fight, the hunt, knowing they're catching one of the apex creatures on the planet," O'Hare told CBS4 Reporter Natalia Zea.
Now, a new non-profit group based out of California, is pushing Mark the Shark's marina, Sea Isle Marina, to go shark-free.
"There's really no reason to bring a shark like that in, he could well have caught and photographed it and released it," said marine biologist Luke Tipple.
He said, "On a personal note, it's tragic to see a shark like that killed; but on a scientific sense, it's a vulnerable species and there's really no excuse for slaughtering a mature, breeding-age vulnerable species in the ocean."
Tipple started the group "Shark-Free Marinas". He's pushing marina owners across the country to sign up and refuse to allow boaters docked on their property to bring caught sharks to shore.
O'Hare says many sharks die on their own after fighting with the fisherman. He also says his daily fishing trips are not hurting the shark population, especially compared to commercial fisheries. "We might catch one or two sharks a week, as opposed to the commercial guys who go out and catch three to four hundred a night in the same spot right here in Miami." It's a continuing controversy over the hunting of our ocean's most-feared predators.
The manager of the Sea Isle Marina told Zea that Tipple has reached out to them and asked them to go completely shark-free. That manager says they are still looking into it.
Article by Natalia Zea for CBS4 news