Specific Footage Needed

Hey Folks, Hope some of you might help me on a new project. I need footage of things most folk don't film but hope that some might. Needed are clips of underwater devastation, dying fish caused by pollution, dynamiting, etc, sharks caught in nets or finned , topside clips of fish markets, pirate finning boats, long liners...anything that shows the horrors of what we are doing to our oceans. You will be given full credit whenever and where ever possible. Sorry, no money in this project either for you or me but hoping some of you might be able and willing to help.

Email me at: steve-sharksdelight@cox.net and thank you for your considerations

In the meantime, I hope you are all preparing your film submissions for this years San Diego UnderSea Film Festival. Your chance to see/have your films shown on a giant state of the art screen in a magnificent theater

Thanks to the many of you who have contacted me with offers of this type of footage. I still need some more, either DV or HDV, for this worthy film project so don't hesitate to scroll through your tapes. Again, my appreciation-Steve

I guess the challenge is that everyone may be doing what I do - spending time on hours of the 'pretty' stuff, and not of all the bottles, cans, polystyrene, and other indescribable rubbish on the beach we just departed from - unless there is a specific project in mind.

Good luck though - sounds like a worthy project.

I'm resident in Singapore and waging my own private war against shark fin soup. With around 200 million sharks being slaughtered every year, no wonder that reefs are becoming barren and we have to go further and further afield to see these beasts.

However, any 'cruelty' or 'conservation' discussion has no affect on these people, they need to feel the pain personally, or there is no connection. So now when I'm asked why I don't eat shark fin (for example at weddings or at Chinese New Year celebrations) I say that it's for 'health reasons'. When asked to explain I tell them that heavy metals are concentrated by predators, and the sharks have the highest levels of mercury and lead in the fins. What's more all this mercury and lead affects your libido, so effectively shark fin soup leads ultimately to impotence.

Actually all this is not so far from the truth. It is known that Singapore and Hong Kong residents typically have much higher mercury levels than normal, and even the government has complained about the lack of babies in Singapore these days! Definitely needs more research, but you'd be surprised how effective this explanation is in disuading people to eat shark fin vs. the 'cruelty' angle .... Maybe you should spread this angle a bit in your doco.

Jackson's War? Sounds like a trilogy in the making. However, the primarily seafood diet of the chinese is the cause.Most of the fish they eat are higher up on the food chain, thus the mercury levels are higher. BUT the thai government (yes the same Thaksin regime) says there is no risk... so there is no risk!

If you tell them that sharks fin causes libido problems, they'll want gill rakers from mantas and tiger penises to compensate for the loss of wood.

Well as you know they already serve up humphead wrasse lips, manta gills, tiger penis (and dog, deer, and other varieties of male member), bear gall bile, a variety of animals' testicles, powdered rino horn etc etc.

I've heard manta gill soup may be the replacement for shark fin when the increasing numbers of affluent mainland Chinese middle class finally exhaust shark fin stocks. Shark fin is already rising in price as reliable sources become harder to find.

You are right about the sea food diet and mercury of course, but if there is anyway to slow the culling (stocks of previously common sharks are down 80-90% in many part of the world that should still be heavily populated - try to spot a shark in fabled Raja Ampat for instance) I'm game to try .....

Man, Pfizer could save most of the worlds endangered species by giving out free samples of viagra to these places....!!!!

Yes, it has been hard getting footage of this type of stuff. I remember a couple of years ago when Master Card was offering a free bowl of shark fin soup with every sign up. God knows how many divers wrote them and protested, as did I, and they withdrew the campaign. Never the less, if any of you have this type of footage, the kind most of us never take, I would appreciate your sharing it with me. Wish I could say that you would get some $ out of it but neither you nor I will see any of that. Can't even guarentee credit as some festivals only allow one name on it. However, where it can be credited, you will definitely have your name on it. For the large San Diego Film Festival, I can say for sure, that all contributers will absolutely have their names in the credits.

Steve