Hello everyone and welcome one and all to Operation Bleeding Seas II! For those of you who do not know who I am, I will tell you as that is probably a good place to start this introduction. My name is Doug. I have been typing on this blog for over a year now and am a huge advocate for the animals living in our oceans. I am a supporter of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and other conservation groups who are actively working to defend aquatic life. I grew up not even a mile from the ocean and have loved it my whole life. I have worked with many marine animals including sharks, seals, penguins, and a plethora of fish. With that being said, lets take a look at this operation shall we?
Operation Bleeding Seas II will take place from today, March 19th, 2014, till whatever the last day of summer is. This campaign is going to focus on the conservation of sharks, manta rays, and bluefin tuna. I will also be focusing on the slaughter of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands. For those of you who may have been following along for dolphin conservation stuff, I do apologize as this time of the year I tend to focus on mantas as opposed to dolphins. As always though, if anything major were to happen I would still type about it. Just because they are not a major focus of this operation does not mean that I am not paying attention as to what is going on. So that's my little disclaimer on that. This campaign, as with all of my other campaigns will have both facts and opinions in the blogs. If I have an opinion on something I will simply say "in my opinion" before finishing the sentence. Otherwise take things here as facts. I will be doing my best to spread news about these animals as I read them and will also be doing some blogs that are more educational than about changing the world. Personally, I think those two things are really one and the same, but others would surely argue that. Also, I will warn you now that the blogs in this operation are going to have graphic images and video. I didn't call this Operation Bleeding Seas II for no reason. As always though, I will warn you before any of these images or videos are shown so you may quickly scroll on by them.
Now lets look at why I am focusing on sharks, mantas, bluefin tuna, and the Faroe Island slaughter.
Sharks
Sharks will be the number 1 focus of Operation Bleeding Seas II. Movies like Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, Sharknado, and about a million others have instilled a fear of sharks into the hearts of millions and millions of people worldwide. Throughout the world these animals are also being hunted for their fins for use in a soup known as shark fin soup. In certain parts of the world, these animals are straight up being slaughtered for no reason. We will take a closer look throughout the campaign on these issues.
We will look at the effects that the media has had on people's views of sharks. We will tear down the myths and get down to the truths about these animals. We will see that these animals are not the monsters that Hollywood has made them out to be. While we fight that battle, we will also fight a far more serious one. Shark finning is a massive cause of plummeting shark populations worldwide. It is estimated that 100,000,000 sharks are being killed on an annual basis. This is simply inexcusable and must end now if we ever want these animals to have a chance in the future. Sharks reproduce very slowly and some species will only give birth to one pup at a time. This is just one of the reasons like states such as West Australia should not be having a wholesale slaughter of these animals. The slaughter of sharks worldwide must come to an end or they will be lost forever.
Manta Rays
One of the gentle giants of the seas. Nearly everyone has heard of them. They majestically swim through the water and perform spectacular flips and jumps while hunting or freeing themselves of parasites. They would never hurt a human and have swam side by side peacefully with them. Now though, people are killing these animals at an extremely dangerous rate. Why you ask? For just one part of their bodies, their gill rakers. The gill rakers are used in filter feeding, but for humans they do nothing. Despite this fact, they are sold as a part of traditional Chinese medicine while not actually being traditional Chinese medicine. You did read that right. The bottom line is these animals are going to vanish if this gill raker trade continues to run unchecked. Mantas, like sharks are very slow to reproduce, and some mantas will only give birth to one pup during the course of it's life.
Bluefin Tuna
Of all the species of large fish in the world, the bluefin tuna is certainly one of the most prized. Often sold as sushi or at dining establishments, this endangered fish is now facing extinction. Contrary to sharks and mantas, bluefin tuna do have a pretty rapid reproductive rate once the animals mature and begin spawning. It is when these animals group up though that humans will scoop entire schools out of the seas. We have completely decimated this once abundant species of fish and now overfishing is pushing them to a point they will not be able to recover from. There is still time left to save these animals, but we need to quickly change our ways before overfishing claims them and eventually the rest of the seas.
The Faroe Islands
This little island chain holds an incredibly dark secret. Every year a slaughter of hundreds of pilot whales takes place in these islands and not only is it a slaughter, but a family affair. You read that right. Men, women, and even children participate in one of the most barbaric slaughters in the entire world. This inhumane slaughter sees pregnant whales have their wombs cut open and their unborn calfs spilled onto the ground, and that's just the start of the horrors that will be exposed.
Operation Bleeding Seas II is officially on! Expect the first blog of the operation in the very near future!
