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DAN RATHER: By a conservative estimate, some two-hundred thousand sharks a day are taken
out of the ocean. That’s a little over seventy-three million a year. They take up the sharks, they
take off the fins, and then dump them back in the ocean to die a long and painful death
on the ocean floor. A very big side effect is, that in fishing for sharks, that a lot
of other animals of the deep and not so deep are caught up in the nets. The goal is to
get the sharks but they inevitably pull up other fish. This also threatens to harm the
balance of the eco-system.
LADY: I watched some of the clips from the expose online, and I noticed that some of
the footage is very graphic and really sad. I’m wondering, do you think that showing
these images to people is really what’s needed for people to understand how the sharks
are suffering and just the magnitude of this industry?
DAN RATHER: I do, and I’m sensitive to, we show hundreds of sharks dying on the ocean
floor as we do. When you show how many fins at a fin auction, for example, and recognize
that it’s pretty ugly stuff. However, what prevails here is the sense that if people
don’t see it they don’t get the sense of the full impact of it.
LADY: If you could tell people what they could do to end this, what would your advice be?
DAN RATHER: Come informed about it. Particularly, come informed about what the effect is on
the world-wide ocean, ecosystem. To come in educated and informed is the number one thing.