From Oceana:
Shark Fin Victory in Singapore
Posted Fri, Jan 6, 2012 by RProkop
In Singapore, we’re seeing more proof that dedicated activists can make a difference in the world. Singapore is one of the shark fin capitals of the world, but thanks to an outcry from local customers, its largest supermarket chain, Fairprice, will be pulling fins from its shelves.
Shark fins are often cut from live sharks, which are then thrown overboard to die. The huge demand for fins, considered a delicacy, puts some shark species at risk of extinction.
And while shark fin is a culturally important food in Singapore, the tide is turning. A campaign by divers against shark fins caused one of Fairprice’s suppliers to launch an online attack ad that said “Screw the divers!”
Luckily for sharks, the ad backfired. Not all Singaporeans are shark fin fans. Local groups like Project Fin have been fighting to create change from the inside out, and they are finally having an impact. In response to the ad, Singaporeans sent hundreds of complaints to Fairprice and suggested a boycott.
In response, Fairprice made the smart—and surprising—decision to stop selling shark fins.
“It is encouraging to see FairPrice respond promptly to the public reaction. They can progress further by selling only sustainable food,” said Jennifer Lee, founder of Project Fin.
Kudos to the Singaporean shark protectors for such a powerful victory in the wake of cultural pressure.
Why planting mangroves is good news for whale sharks: here.
Petition: Stop the Shark killing in the Red Sea.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
New iPhone app lets users follow roaming great white sharks
Alex Dobuzinskis Reuters
7:38 p.m. EST, January 12, 2012
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The great white shark is lurking in cyberspace, in the form of an iPhone application launched this week that allows users to track a dozen of the predators as they roam around the Pacific Ocean.
The California-based Marine Conservation Science Institute launched the app, which the nonprofit describes as the first shark tracker of its kind, to raise funds for its research.
Great white sharks have scared and fascinated the public going back at least to Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film “Jaws,” and the animals’ pop culture stardom continues in such television programming as the Discovery Channel’s annual “Shark Week.”
Michael Domeier and the Marine Conservation Science Institute he heads have also been featured on TV, through a National Geographic series called “Expedition Great White” that debuted in 2009 and was later renamed “Shark Men.”
The institute received exposure from the show and the headline-grabbing theory Domeier has advanced that great whites might hunt giant squids, when they spends part of the year in a desolate patch of the Pacific between California and Hawaii.
The sharks that users can watch on their smartphone screens were tagged by the institute itself in recent years. But Domeier’s institute remains relatively small, with only one other person on staff.
“This is an innovative way for us to be trying to raise money in this really challenging economy,” Domeier said of his new application, which sells for $3.99 at iTunes.
The application, launched at iTunes on Wednesday, cost nearly $100,000 to produce, he said. Included in that budget was video content and a game for children to learn about great whites.
The institute has tagged more than 20 great white sharks, but the batteries on some of the tags expired, Domeier said. The iPhone application allows users to follow the migration of a dozen sharks the institute is still following, he said.
TRACKING DEVICES LINKED TO SATELLITES
The tracking devices on the sharks, which are linked to satellites, will not give the exact locations of the predators, so there is no fear that it could be used by hunters.
For the satellite to get a reading from a tracking device, a shark must be at the surface for at least three minutes, Domeier said. As a result, an updated position on each shark is not available every day.
“It’s not super-precise, and the sharks are moving all the time,” said Domeier, who holds a doctorate in marine biology and fisheries.
Ted Miller, a spokesman for Apple, said apart from the institute’s product, he was not aware of any other shark-tracking application available at iTunes.
The institute plans to later launch iPad and Android versions of the app, but for now it is only available for Apple’s iPhone.
Domeier said the great white shark remains a largely mysterious creature. The animals number in the thousands in the Pacific Ocean off California and Mexico, but their exact population in the region is unknown, he said.
“For decades, we thought of great whites as a temperate species that lives off the coast living off seals and small porpoises, but actually that’s not true,” he said.
“They spend a majority of their time out in the ocean, and we really don’t know what they’re doing there.”
John O’Sullivan, curator of field operations at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said he and colleagues talked about creating a tracking program for the public such as the one developed by Domeier. “He got off his butt and made it,” O’Sullivan said.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the great white shark as a vulnerable species, which is one level removed from endangered status.
Great whites have been among those species of sharks killed for shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy. The United Nations estimates that over 70 million sharks a year are killed for the dish. California lawmakers last year banned the soup in an effort to protect the animals.
(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
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Rich Asians threaten high-value fish: experts
January 24, 2012 | From afp.com
The growing ranks of wealthy Asians and their increasing appetite for more expensive fish are threatening stocks, potentially causing wider environmental damage, experts at a UN conference said on Tuesday.
As Asians became more prosperous, they prefer to eat more “high-value” species, forcing fishermen to catch more of them even if it means using environmentally harmful and illegal methods, they said.
“Increased wealth, especially in Asia,” had raised demand for more expensive fish like certain groupers and tunas, said Jackie Alder, head of the marine coastal office of the UN Environment Programme.
“They are no longer satisfied with anchovies,” she told reporters on the sidelines of a UN conference on oceans in the Philippine capital.
She warned that fish production had stabilised at 80 million tonnes in the 1980s and scientists believed that it would not go any higher.
“There is no doubt that changing lifestyles and eating habits are having an effect on resources,” said Jerker Tamelander, head of the UN Environment Programme’s coral reef unit.
He cited the case of live groupers which are in such demand in Asia that fishermen use cyanide to stun them and catch them alive, even if this kills other fish and harms coral reefs.
Even then, many of these groupers die during transport across Asia, he warned.
“There is high mortality, high transport costs but also high returns.”
Depleting the stocks of high-value fish could also upset the balance of nature in coral reefs, possibly leading to their degradation, he added.
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