Divers know that sharks are a vital component in Earth’s ecosystem, but two-thirds of the great British public have yet to get the message – which is why UK charity Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation is taking to the streets for the first time with a smart ad campaign on the sharks’ behalf. Its stark message is that if they die, we die.
Although it’s been half a century since the film Jaws first terrified audiences around the world, a YouGov poll this June indicated that 66% of the UK population have no sympathy for sharks, says Bite-Back.
In those same five decades since 1975 overfishing, especially by industrial tuna fleets, has reduced populations of some shark species by around 70%.
More than 73 million sharks are killed annually – an average of 200,000 a day. Because of the negative role played by tuna fisheries, Bite-Back encourages its supporters to buy only tuna caught by pole and line and spread the word.
“All the time the global slaughter of sharks goes unchecked, we’re gradually pulling the pin out of an ecological grenade that will impact the world,” says the charity’s long-time campaign director Graham Buckingham.
Once-abundant and iconic species including oceanic whitetip, hammerhead and sand tiger sharks have fallen so fast in numbers that they are now listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, while one in four species is now listed as Threatened or Endangered.
Apocalyptic outcome
A charity award from outdoor advertising media specialist Ocean Outdoor is enabling the Bite-Back ad campaign to appear on digital billboards in 10 cities and at more than 50 sites across the country until the end of September. To emphasise everyone’s connection with sharks, the campaign highlights an occupation or pastime for each letter of the alphabet.
“Our ‘Sharks Save…’ campaign directly answers the question ‘Why should I care about the survival of sharks?’ with a clear message that – regardless of profession or pastime – sharks save us all,” says Buckingham.
“If we don’t act now, we’ll be complicit in accelerating an apocalyptic outcome. Saving sharks isn’t just about saving a marine species, it’s about protecting the world’s largest ecosystem that makes our planet liveable.
“The message is very simple: we need sharks to survive. We want this advertising campaign to be the moment that people start to regard sharks as heroes and not villains.”
“This campaign isn’t about making people fall in love with sharks, it’s about making people understand that we need them,” adds Bite-Back patron and TV naturalist Steve Backshall.
“The hope is that, once people know and understand how important they are to life on Earth, they’ll be more motivated to participate in their survival. Bite-Back has done some amazing things to champion shark conservation and I urge everyone to get behind its campaigns.”
Because of Bite-Back‘s campaigns over the years, the UK is now the only country in Europe to ban the import and export of shark fins, and shark meat cannot be bought in any UK supermarket.
Links in a chain: What happens without sharks?
- Growing numbers of mid-level fish out-consume their prey, causing the group to fail and so on down and across once-healthy populations that humans need for protein.
- Fewer profitable fish and more diseased fish make fishing communities redundant.
- Turtles, dugongs and manatees rapidly over-consume the seagrass essential for the absorption and storage of 30% of carbon dioxide.
- More CO2 in the atmosphere accelerates global warming, disrupts seasons and prompts new weather patterns that can cause important crops to fail.
- Absence of herbivorous fish allows algae to proliferate, smothering and killing coral reefs, turning seawater green and making coastal towns less attractive to tourists, forcing unemployment in that sector.
