In honour of the Bar Mitzvah of Ashton and in lieu of gifts, please make a donation in support of the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s work to save Australia’s threatened sharks.
Australia is a global hotspot for sharks and rays. We’re home to more than 300 different species, half of which are found nowhere else on earth. Many of these species are threatened.
It’s Dr Leonardo ‘Leo’ Guida’s job is to save these species – some of the most threatened and iconic animals in our oceans.
Leo is the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s shark scientist and campaigner. Through his critical work he has:
- Secured a reduction in shark catches in the Great Barrier Reef – saving about 20,000 sharks a year.
- Secured “fins attached” laws for shark fishing. This closes a loophole that allowed illegal and inhumane live shark finning to happen out at sea.
- Reduced the amount of salmon that can be farmed in Macquarie Harbour in order to protect the ancient Maugean skate, a unique species that lives nowhere else in the world but in a small pocket of Tasmania.
- Launched #GiveFlakeABreak, a campaign to stop the consumption of endangered sharks that are being mis-labelled and sold in fish and chip shops as ‘flake’. See Leo talk about this here on ABC News.
And he has plans, here’s a snapshot of some of what we need to achieve next:
- Protecting unique species of sharks, skates and rays that are caught in fisheries off southern and eastern Australia. These species are found nowhere else on earth and are currently being fished without protections in place. Some species, like the whitefin swellshark, have declined by 80%.
- Protecting sawfish, one of the world’s most endangered groups of fish by reducing the catch of sawfish in commercial fishing nets and working with scientists and Indigenous rangers to rescue, tag and research sawfish through the NT Sawfish Rescue Mission. Sawfish have been wiped out in many other countries and Australia’s tropical north is now the ‘lifeboat’ for these species.
- Making sure all endangered sharks, skates and rays are listed as protected on our national environment laws (they are not yet properly protected).
For more information about Leo, here’s his short biography and you can see him featuring in NatGeo TV’s “When Sharks Attack”, and in “Envoy: Shark Cull” a movie-length documentary narrated by Eric Bana.
All donations are 100% tax-deductible. Our important campaigns are not funded by Government grants, we are totally reliant on generous people like you to protect Australia’s oceans and the animals that call them home.