Sharks are friend not foe

To say mankind’s relationship with sharks is complicated, is a massive understatement. Maligned for centuries as mindless killing machines, it’s only been very recently in the history of the human race that we’ve come to realise that not only this is not at all the case, but we’ve been beginning to learn that sharks are vitally important to ocean ecosystems. ...

Healthy populations of sharks are critical to a healthy ocean. Typically occupying the top of food webs as apex predators, they keep said food webs in balance. The impact of overfishing of shark populations can cause food webs to become unstable and potentially collapse. Recent science is also revealing the important role sharks have in regulating the behavior of other...

We are thrilled to offer live screenings of Envoy: Shark Cull around Australia! The ground-breaking documentary, Envoy: Shark Cull, exposes the truth about shark culling programs on Australia’s East Coast and features Humane Society International’s very own marine biologist, Lawrence Chlebeck and Australian Marine Conservation Society’s shark scientist, Dr Leonardo Guida. Upcoming Screenings Cairns 4  August 2022 at 6:30PM Macalister...

Global shark fin trade The global shark and ray (hereafter, ‘sharks’ for simplicity) fin trade appears to be on the rise again. In the last 20 years, volumes of fins exported peaked at around 15,000t in 2002, and began a gradual decline where exports bottomed at around 5,000t in 2013. However, since 2013, there appears to be a gradual increase...

Sharks have been on this earth for around 450 million years, that’s before the first tree ever sprouted from a seed (Xu et al. 2017)! They’ve survived five mass extinction events however the question we now ask ourselves is, will they survive Us?  Sharks, rays and chimaeras are all cartilaginous (cartilage, the stuff your nose is made of!) fish, making...