Plight of native UK sharks

[fishing_fanatic]

<font color='#000000'>Martin Ellis a fisherman in Cornwall, this week caught and killed approaching 200 porbeagle sharks&#33; He has encouraged other fisherman to do the same, as there is a lucrative market for their meat on the Continent and this further slaughter has already started.

Sharks have been very maligned and do not have the popular image of dolphins or the appeal of the big sad eyes of baby seals, but I implore you to please consider the likelihood of the disappearance of yet another animal from our shores, but with your help this amazing creature could survive another day.

The fishing industry has had special rights to subsidies denied to other industries and the Government must find them alternative employment, as they cannot be allowed to wipe out one species after another to extinction to earn a living. Even those sympathetic to the plight of fishermen, cannot believe that they should be allowed to do this, which could also adversely affect the food chain. These sharks are not migratory and will disappear for good.

For the benefit of the fishermen and the fish, there has to be sustainable fishing and quotas, sadly even for sharks, which many of us who have had close encounters, would prefer not to see fished at all.

We cannot be critical of the fin trade in the Far East, when we ourselves are destroying our own populations.

Please take just a few minutes to email the points below to the following people:

- Demand that this slaughter of sharks off Cornwall, should be stopped now.

- Also please call for an immediate temporary halt to commercial shark fishing, so that the situation can be assessed. If these magnificent creatures are not on the endangered list at the moment, they certainly will be in a very short time, if the catch itself and the size of the fish caught is not controlled by sustainable quotas.

email: bradshawb@parliament.uk (Ben Bradshaw MP - Minister)

email: pus.commons@defra.gsi.gov.uk (Dept. for Envir.,Food & Rural Affairs)

email: trender.gosw@go-regions.gsi.gov.uk (Defra office re: Cornwall)

email: john.webb@defra.gsi.gov.uk (Defra Press Office)


email: Your MP Who is your MP? search

email: Your MEP Who is your MEP? search</font>

<font color='#000080'>You should set up a petition here and mail the link around once complete&#33;

http://www.petitiononline.com/petition.html</font>

[fishing_fanatic]

<font color='#000000'>Cheers Hondy when I have a spare moment I will look into it.</font>