In Summer 2023, we launched a huge social media campaign to raise awareness and put a lot of pressure on American authorities regarding shark kill tournaments.
WHAT IS A SHARK TOURNAMENT ?
Shark tournaments are sport fishing competitions in which anglers compete and try to catch and kill the biggest shark possible. The fisherman that comes back with the biggest shark wins the competition and a prize money. The killing of these sharks doesn’t support the livelihood of anyone, no one is eating them either, they are killing these sharks purely for fun and entertainement.
WHERE IS IT HAPPENING ?
Shark tournaments are happening all over the United States of American, mainly on the East Coast of the country, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi).
WHICH SHARK SPECIES ARE TARGETED ?
It depends on the location and the species that can be found in the waters where the tournament is taking place. On the East Coast, they are mainly targeting Shortfin Mako Sharks (IUCN status: Endangered), Blue Sharks (IUCN status: Near Threatened) and Common Thresher Sharks (IUCN status: Vulnerable). In Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico, they are mainly targeting Bull Sharks (IUCN status: Vulnerable) and Tiger Sharks (IUCN status: Near Threatened).
SHARK KILLING TOURNAMENTS CAMPAIGN
A dead Bull Shark caught and killed at the 90th Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo hanging under the Alabama and American flag
THE ALABAMA DEEP SEA FISHING RODEO
The Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo is one of the biggest fishing tournament in the country.
It’s taking place every year in Dauphin Island, Alabama, USA.
Among other fish species, there are 2 categories in which the anglers target sharks: Bull Shark category and Tiger Shark category.
Our team attended the event from July 21st 2023 to July 23rd 2023 in order to capture images of the images and start a social media campaign to raise awareness about these barbaric events.
During the event, 9 Bull sharks and 14 Tiger sharks were slaughtered in the name of entertainement.
Beside the number of animals killed, the big issue lies in the ethic behind it. These sharks are highly important for the ocean ecosystems as they are on the absolute top of the food chain, yet they are also very fragile species and their numbers are rapidly decreasing because they aren’t able to keep up with the current fishing pressure they are facing from commercial fisheries.
We simply can’t allow people to add even more pressure on top of everything by killing them for fun.
Fishing these sharks doesn’t support the livelihood of anyone and no one is eating them. The only reason why they are killed is to fulfil the entertainment needs of a small privileged minority of people doing it for fun.
These unnecessary slaughters must be stopped as we have to change our relationship to the ocean if we want to give them a chance to survive.
On the photo, a dead Bull sharks killed during the event and displayed in public as trophy.
During the event, one of the very first shark that was brought back dead was a huge pregnant female Tiger shark, almost ready to give birth.
They landed her on the dock and then opened her up to find more than 25-30 fully formed babies in her belly, almost ready to be born.
Everything is completely legal, yet they didn’t want us to film that big pregnant female but we still managed to capture the image below with our phone…
A BIG PREGNANT FEMALE…
JUVENILE INDIVIDUALS AS WELL…
Beside that huge pregnant female, lots of juvenile sharks were killed as well, jeopardizing the reproduction and survival of the species.
On this image, you can see that they caught a young female Tiger shark that hasn’t had time to reach sexual maturity and therefore, that hasn’t had time to reproduce.
It takes about 10-12 years for Tiger sharks to reach sexual maturity and females must be more than 3 meters.
This female is clearly younger and smaller than that…
We also have evidence and footage of much younger individuals that were killed as well during the tournament and that weren’t brought back to the weigh station and simply discarded in the ocean and found dead under a bridge…
AN EVENT SUPPORTED BY LOCAL “SCIENTISTS”…
The worst part of it all probably lies in the fact that this event was support by the Mississippi State University and the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. The fact that these two entities supported the event gave legitimacy to it as they said that the “scientists” were collecting samples from the dead sharks supposedly for “scientific researches”.
Therefore, all the supporters of this unnecessary slaughter were hiding behind these excuse and saying that killing these sharks was useful for science. But is it really ?
First of all, the shark category was actually brought back to the tournament because of these exact “scientists” after 10 years without it. As we can read on the very first page of the tournament website: “Dr. Sean Powers with the University of South Alabama and Dr. Marcus Drymon with Mississippi State have been extremely influential in our decision to allow sharks to be added as a category at the 89th Annual Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo and advance the data collection of the species.” This statement clearly proves that these universities played a crucial role in bringing back this shark slaughter and their involvment pushed the organizers to allow the unnecessary death of these sharks.
Tiger sharks and Bull sharks are highly migratory species which has already been proven by science using GPS tagging technologies which means that these sharks don’t stay in the US. Both of these species conservation status is based on data coming mainly from fisheries and the amount of shark caught which obviously has a margin of error. Whether these sharks are Vulnerable to exctinction or Near Threatened, the fact is that, globally, sharks have been disappearing at an extremely alarming rate. Allowing and supporting people that are killing these extremely fragile species for nothing but entertainment simply adds up to the huge pressure they are already facing from commercial fisheries and is completely useless beside allowing some people to have some fun…
We have tried to find infos about the actual “studies” these people are doing with the samples they are getting from this tournament but we haven’t been able to find anything clear… To this day, our questions still remain unanswered: HOW ARE THESE “SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES” GOING TO HELP PROTECT THESE SHARKS ? WHAT HYPOTHETICAL POSITIVE IMPACTS THESE “RESEARCHES” ARE GOING TO HAVE ON CONSERVATION ? HOW ARE THESE HYPOTHETICAL POSITIVE IMPACTS GOING TO OVERTAKE THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF THIS SLAUGHTER ?
Not only, there are non lethal ways to study sharks but moreover, all scientific researches have to respect a certain ethical protocol. Yet, there’s clearly no ethic in any of this... What’s the point in studying a species that you allow others to slaughter for fun ? What is the point in doing science and finding data if you don’t use it to have a positive impact on the species you’re studying ?
The “scientists” claimed that getting samples from commercial fisheries is not feasible which is completely wrong… Ourselves, we work with scientists that are directly working with commercial shark fishermen (find more infos here) in order to get samples and we can confirm that it works and that they are totally able to do it ! The “scientists” also said that not sampling the dead sharks would be a waste, but the issue resides in the fact that by doing so, they give legitimacy to this unnecessary slaughter allowing not only the fishermen but the organizations supporting this event to hide behind this excuse which is totally unacceptable. These sharks are being slaughtered for entertainment and any respectable scientist with a minimum amount of ethic would never support and give legitimacy to such a barbaric event.
WHAT ABOUT NOAA IN ALL THIS?
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is the authority implementing all the laws meant to protect and regulate the ocean and fishing activities in the United States.
Yet, they seem to be totally fine with these unnecessary and barbaric slaughters happening all over their country…
Our social media campaign affected them and they even made an Instagram post in response saying that they aren’t part of these tournaments and they don’t support them.
But allowing these people to kill for entertainment and not doing anything about it is exactly the same as supporting it because the final result is the same: sharks are dying, the oceans are collapsing and nothing is being done about it but the worst part of this situation is that in this specific case, we’re talking about a completely unnecessary massacre that is not supporting the livelihood or survival of any human being. Juvenile individuals as well as a big pregnant mother were killed for fun, yet NOAA seems totally fine with it instead of taking real measures to stop such unnecessary slaughter and threat to happen.
We are urging NOAA to put an end to these slaughters because they are the authority that have the power to do so. They just need to open their eyes, see what is happening, see that these minorities are affecting the natural heritage of their country and do something about it !
The entire world is seeing it and judging the United States about it, it is time to show some respect to the ocean.
SETTING THE WRONG EXAMPLE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS…
During the event, lots of kids were around, playing with dead Bull sharks, petting them and laughing…
IS THIS REALLY THE VALUES THAT INSTITUTIONS LIKE THE MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY, NOAA OR THE DAUPHIN ISLAND SEA LAB WANT TO TEACH YOUR KIDS ?
IS THIS THE KIND OF EDUCATION THEY WANT TO PROMOTE ?
IS THIS THE KIND OF CONNECTION THEY WANT TO HAVE WITH THE OCEAN ?
IS THIS THE LEGACY THEY WANT TO LEAVE TO OUR KIDS ?
This must stop and we need everyone’s help to put an end to it !
SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN
We used all the footage we created during the event to shed light on this slaughter, to let as many people as possible know about it and to put pressure on the institutions supporting this event.
The campaign had a huge response and impact on Instagram with more than a million people affected and seeing the images.
MORE THAN A MILLION VIEWS
The videos we posted on Instagram have gathered more than 1.3 million views (>1’363’300 views on August 28th 2023) impacting people all over the world to raise awareness about this barbaric event.
We’ve also had a huge support from other ocean conservation NGOs that reposted our work and that collaborated with us to spread the word about it: Sea Spiracy, Sea Shepherd global, Sea Shepherd US, Stop Finning EU.
The campaign was also supported by famous people working in the shark conservation world such as Eli Roth (actor, 317k followers), Ocean Ramsey (shark expert, 1.7M followers), Juan Sharks (shark expert, 912k followers), Zimy Da Kid (film director, conservationist and founder of Deep Sea Guardians, 110k followers), Elisabetta Canalis (model, 3.5M followers) and more…
We also collaborated with @DiscoverSharks (3.1M followers) to post a video that almost reached a million views on its own and had a huge response.
RESPONSE FROM THE FISHERMEN…
The actual fishermen that slaughtered some of the sharks saw our social media campaign and reached out to us to just make fun of it and sent us videos of themselves playing with the dead babies under the song “Baby Shark”…
Furthermore, here are some images from the fishermen themselves, proudly displaying the sharks they killed…
THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP US FIGHT THESE USELESS SLAUGHTERS…
Tap on each section for more infos
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By reposting and supporting the content we post on our Instagram profile @deepseaguardians, you’ll help us spread the word about shark tournaments. No matter how many followers you have, sharing the posts will just raise more awareness and put more pressure on the institutions and authorities supporting and allowing events like this.
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You can help us put more pressure on the authorities and institutions allowing and supporting this event.
You can simply send us an email urging them to put an end to these unnecessary slaughters !
Here are some useful email adresses you could text to, please make sure to be respectful and only share true facts:
Dr. Marcus Drymon, scientist from the Mississippi State University supporting this event: marcus.drymon@msstate.edu
Dr. Sean Powers, scientist from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab supporting this event: spowers@disl.edu
Shelley Stephens, assistant to the executive director at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab supporting the event: sstephens@disl.edu
Randy Blankinship, chief of the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Management Division of the Office of Sustainable Fisheries: randy.blankinship@noaa.gov
Michael Ruccio, chief of Domestic Fisheries management: michael.ruccio@noaa.gov
Karyl Brewster-Geisz, chief of the Rulemaking Branch of the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Management Division: karyl.brewster-geisz@noaa.gov
Mississippi State University general e-mail address: registrar@registrar.msstate.edu
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If you happen to be in the area of a shark fishing tournament, try your best to capture images of the event in order to use them to add pressure and to keep spreading the word.
You can send us any images you have to info@deepseaguardians.org and we’ll make sure to post them and give full credits to you !