Dorina Dian
Hello, my name is Dorina Dian.
During my childhood, I used to watch documentaries about marine life, about sharks, whales, orcas, dolphins and so on. I learned swimming and snorkelling when I was around six, and after that, it was a tough task to get me out of the water. I’ve had a chance to see many seas, many coasts and marine animals so far in my life. So now, I want to tell you about a creature that is feared by most of humans, and has the main role in so many horror movies: The Shark.
For all this time, we have been raised in the faith that sharks are cruel, cold-blooded murderers. Monsters who kill everything that comes their way. But as we know, people kill way more sharks annually than sharks kill humans. 74-100 million sharks are being killed every year, and for what? For shark fin soup. Their fins are cut down, and they bleed to death, die in agony, suffer for no reason. It is still legal in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Makao, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia too. So I ask, who are the cold-blooded murderers? Who wipes out an entire species for some pathetic reason, for rich people’s fun? The most beautiful underwater creatures are slowly becoming extinct. And this is all on humans.
Most of you don’t know this, but sharks’ presence is vital in the oceans. Sharks, in fact, assist in maintaining the health of the reefs; they help to keep a balance in the fish community by hunting the predators that feed on small grazing fish. (The grazers, in their turn, keep the corals free from seaweed and parasites that would otherwise overgrow the reef.)
That is also a reason why we should shut these murders down. These kinds of people think that they stand above the laws of nature, that they can take whatever they want, and nothing can stop them. But we will send them a message. We are going to save sharks, with words and strikes, whatever it takes. We have to tell people what is going on, so we can stand together and achieve a ban on killing sharks.
As I speak now, at this very moment, there are thousands of sharks out there being slaughtered in brutal and inhumane ways. The only remaining question for us now is: will we let these horrors continue, or will we stand up for these magnificent animals of the deep?