Shark fin frenzy

There is a scene in Rob Stewart’s acclaimed documentary, Sharkwater, in which a live shark is shorn of its fins and tail and dumped into the sea to sink like a stone. It is writhing, bleeding and very much alive. Though this is only one of many gruesome scenes in the film, there is something unexpectedly human about this fish as it is pushed unceremoniously off the boat to die below the surface. Its desecration forces an uncomfortable truth on the viewer, and inspires sympathy for a species long-dreaded by the human race. It is the reaction the filmmaker was aiming for: to stir compassion for a creature that is dying because of a frivolous hankering.

Stewart met his first shark when he was nine. Peering through the thin glass of a snorkel mask, he made eye contact from 30 feet away before the elusive creature bolted into the deep blue of the Caribbean.

“As soon as it saw me it swam away, and that has been the case with every shark I met after that,” recalls Stewart from his hometown of Toronto, adding that in the two decades he
has since spent diving with sharks, he has yet to meet one that wasn’t afraid of humans. “They weren’t coming over to bite me,” he explains. “They were actually frightened.”
It was a brief introduction to one of the world’s most misunderstood species, and a pivotal moment for a child who would grow up to make a documentary that has sparked worldwide concern for the fate of the ocean’s top predator. Ample amounts of blood, sweat, and drama are poured into the 89-minute film, which examines the effect of the illegal shark-fin trade on the world’s shark populations.

After thriving for 450 million years, sharks are now threatened with extinction. According to Stewart, shark populations worldwide have been reduced by 90 per cent in the past 50 years. And because they are the oceans’ top predators, entire marine ecosystems are threatened.
As described in Sharkwater, this decimation is due to the Chinese belief that sharks’ fins hold medicinal powers. The fin itself is tasteless; it offers texture without flavour, but consumers believe they will absorb the shark’s strength, and

Stewart takes drastic steps in his film to raise awareness of the issue, including refusing to return to Canada when hospitalized with flesh-eating disease partway through filming. With the clarity of a primary-school textbook, the filmmaker illustrates how imperative the shark is to entire food chains in the global marine ecosystem. By linking their fate to all sea life, which in turn affects our own land-based ecology, he makes a clear case for the role of the consumer: by preserving the shark, we protect our future welfare as well.

“The biggest impact we as constituents and corporations can have is how we vote with our dollars,” Stewart says. “Every day we’re directing whole fisheries, whole economies, whole industries – either toward sustainability or destruction. I think it’s irresponsible for any corporation or restaurant not to serve sustainable seafood.”