Today is Fintastic Friday: Giving Sharks, Skates, and Rays a Voice! Celebrate with us. Tell your friends. Post a Shark Conservation Zone sign and more!
Flat Stanley helps WhaleTimes and DEEPEND scientists celebrate Fintastic Friday. You can, too!
WhaleTimes created Fintastic Friday: Giving Sharks, Skates, and Rays a Voice to help raise awareness and encourage advocacy to protect elasmobranchs. 
This special annual holiday is celebrated worldwide.
Humans are not doing their job to protect sharks. Movies, books, and news outlets have created and perpetuated a false, but stereotypical view of sharks. This misguided hatred has caused a lack of compassion or understanding about sharks’ significant role in the health of the ocean. People hear even less about skates and rays.
On average, only 10 people are killed by sharks a year — in the entire world. BUT people kill more than 11,000 sharks EVERY HOUR of every day. Can you imagine people remaining mum if that number were whales? Dolphins? Penguins? Or some other popular species? Never.
We’ll say it again, People are not doing their best to protect sharks.
WhaleTimes believes kids are the future of sharks. No one is louder and more enthusiastic than a kid who cares. Kids love sharks. They haven’t seen the movies or heard the skewed, sensationalized, and poorly researched news clips. We want kids from all over the world cheering, SAVE THE SHARKS on this special holiday and every day.
Nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) Courtesy NOAA
Fintastic Friday celebrates sharks and encourages everyone to find ways to change public opinion about from hatred to love and fear to appreciation. Think of it as Earth Day for sharks!
Gray reef (Carcharinus amblyrhynchos) Courtesy NOAA Photo credit David Burdick
Why a day for sharks? Shark, ray, and skate populations throughout the world are in peril, some threatened and others critically endangered. All of them need more people to care.
We know people and scientists can encourage governments to save sharks the same way they pushed for protection of whales so long ago. In fact, there are many countries stepping up to protect sharks by creating sanctuaries for sharks, but more need to be part of the solution.
To celebrate we want you to meet just a few scientists and organizations working to protect sharks, skates, and rays throughout the world. We suggest you send them all a big sharky thank you! (see the Big as Life Thank You idea on our Fintastic Friday page)
This year’s Fintastic Friday dedicated to Eugenie Clark, an inspiration to all of us to protect our oceans. Thank you.
Get the word out! Share or Like Fintastic Friday on the WhaleTimes Facebook page
A six gill shark takes a selfie in the deep
Recently, WhaleTimes Director Ruth Musgrave was invited to visit elementary schools in Oregon City, Oregon to talk about sharks. She discovered the kids in Oregon City LOVE sharks as much as we do.
The kids were inspired to celebrate Fintastic Friday early and send a “Big as Life” thank you to biologists helping sharks.
If you follow the link below you’ll see Dr. Dean Grubbs, Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory, showing off his thank you!Take a look! https://www.facebook.com/FSUCML
Thank you kids — and Dr. Grubbs and our friends at Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory! Together we can save sharks!
Don’t forget to mark your calendar, Fintastic Friday: Giving Sharks, Skates, and Rays a Voice is just months away.
Sharks need our help!
Mark your calendar to celebrate Fintastic Friday: Giving Sharks, Skates, and Rays a Voice
May 8, 2015
More to come….
