Urge the Senate to protect Sharks

Fishermen kill roughly 100 million sharks each year and some populations have declined by as much as 99 percent in the past 35 years! As a result, many species are now threatened by extinction.

The Shark Conservation Act of 2009 would protect sharks by closing dangerous loopholes in the current Shark Finning Prohibition Act that allow unscrupulous fishermen to bypass the law. This bill has already passed the House of Representatives and is awaiting action in the Senate.

There is still time to save sharks, but we must act now.

Urge the Senate to protect sharks

Your Senators

Dear Senator,

The Shark Conservation Act (S. 850) will be most effective if it can protect all sharks from being finned at sea. Please support the strong conservation measures of the Shark Conservation Act when it is considered in the Senate, and reject any proposals that allow shark finning to continue in U.S. waters.

Sharks are in trouble: More than half of highly migratory sharks are overexploited or depleted, and up to 73 million sharks are killed each year to support the shark fin trade -- mostly for an Asian delicacy, shark fin soup. The United States should lead the world in shark conservation by passing laws that prohibit shark finning, the removal of fins at sea and discarding of the rest of the shark overboard.

In addition to provisions to prohibit shark finning at sea, the Shark Conservation Act (S.850) would also close other loopholes in the existing U.S. shark conservation laws and would encourage other nations to pass similar measures. The United States has the opportunity to be a global leader in shark conservation and must take action now to conserve sharks before populations decline to dangerously low levels.

I urge you to support S.850, the Shark Conservation Act.

Thank you for your time and attention to this urgent issue.

[Your name]
[Your address]

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