The Sharks of Thailand
By Lars Bindholt

SHARKS ARE ENDANGERED

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Sharkfins sold from shop in Chinatown, Bangkok.

Everywhere in the world the number of sharks are fast declining. Also in Thailand we have seen this decline. This is mainly due to overfishing. The recent rise in prices on shark fins on the Chinese market for use in shark fin soup, has made the situation very bad for sharks.
Even in marine national parks and sanktuaries there is a huge illegal fishery. It is very hard to enforce the regulations out at sea, and in many areas in the third world corruption is very big. Just look at the situation around Galapagos and Cocos island in the Pacific right now.


Sharks wasted at Songkhla Harbour


Sharks has a very slow reproduktive rate and are not capable of coping with a large long lasting fishery. If we don't find a way to regulate and inforce regulations the perspectives are very grim for these top predators.
You yourself should as a small help to the troubled sharks avoid buying shark produkts as sharkfin soup, shark steaks, shark jaws and shark cartilagineous tablets (they have no proven effect) etc.
Also you can spread out the knowledge of these animals to avoid unnescesary fear. Shark attacks are extremely rare when you take into consideration how many people all over the world are using the sea every day swimming, diving and surfing.

Links to this topic:

http://www.sharkwater.com/education.htm

http://seapics.com/feature-subject/conservation-issues/shark-finning-shark-fishing-pictures-001.html  

http://www.shark.ch/Preservation/Facts/finning.html  

http://www.saveallsharks.com/3001.html  

http://www.sharksavers.org/en/get-involved/sign-these-petitions/542-petition-to-palau-stop-senate-bill-8-44-on-shark-fishing.html

http://www.stopsharkfinning.net/news.htm  

http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-050606-1.html