Communities Protecting Sharks
SIGN THE PETITION, BELOW. Join the Ban the Fin effort to protect sharks in the St. Louis area and urge the Dierbergs grocery store chain to stop selling shark products in their stores. With a simple signature, you can help the effort to save sharks!
A St. Louis, Missouri, grocery store chain, Dierbergs, sells thresher shark steaks as a “less expensive seafood option”, despite the depleted status of thresher shark populations and vulnerability to overfishing.
The seafood buyer for the stores defended the sale of thresher shark steaks because the supplier in Ecuador claims the sharks come from an area of abundance. However, a 2006 FAO assessment reports “it is prudent to consider Alopias species as being fully exploited or overexploited globally”.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports that thresher sharks, are threatened because a low reproductive capabiliy results in a low capacity to recover from even moderate levels of exploitation. However, threshers are subject to high levels of largely unmanaged and unreported mortality by both targeted fishieries, intersted in their valuable fins and their edibile meat, and as bycatch for fisheries targeting other species.
To:
Bob Dierberg, Chairman
Greg Dierberg, CEO and President
We respectfully urge Dierbergs grocery stores to stop selling shark products.
We are very concerned to have seen thresher shark being sold in Dierbergs in recent months. Thresher shark populations are depleted worldwide and are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Thresher sharks should not be sold in our community.
Sharks are especially important to the ocean environment because of their role as apex predators. Sharks help to regulate the population size, balance, and health of other sea life in the ecosystem. In areas where sharks populations have been destroyed, significant damage to the food chain can occur.
Sharks are also highly vulnerable to overfishing because they mature much more slowly than most fish. Threshers reach sexual maturity after 8 or more years and then only produce 2 to 4 pups a year.
By continuing to stock and sell thresher shark steak, Dierbergs and other grocery stores create a market for those that profit with little regard for the health of our oceans. Healthy shark populations are essential to healthy oceans. By signing this petition, we encourage Dierbergs to join us as a responsible partner in our community effort to reverse the decline of shark populations.
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