Princeton, NJ, April 02, 2008 --(PR.com)--
The Shark Research Institute created
the
Peter
Benchley Shark Conservation Awards to honor the memory of the late Peter Benchley,
and spotlight those who are working internationally to protect
sharks as valuable ocean resources. The first of the 2008 Peter
Benchley Shark Conservation Awards, sponsored by Rolex, was presented
by SRI President Stan Waterman and Wendy Benchley to Matthew
T. McDavitt on March 29 at an Award Ceremony hosted by Beneath
The Sea (
www.beneaththesea.org). The ceremony was attended by
celebrities and marine conservationists from around the world
including Dr. Sylvia Earle, National Geographic photographer
David Doubilet, and marine artist Wyland.
Sawfish fins are among the most valuable in the shark fin trade.
In US waters, these rays once ranged from New York to Texas.
Critically endangered, their numbers have declined by 99%; today
they are only found in a few marine reserves in Florida. For
more than a decade Matthew T. McDavitt, an estate lawyer from
Virginia, worked on his own to gather data on the international
sawfish trade. In 2006, his data convinced eBay to prohibit sales
of small-tooth sawfish rostra on their website. In 2007, his
comprehensive fully-referenced 40-page overview of the trade
enabled the USA to successfully propose sawfishes for protection
at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES), making them the first elasmobranch fishes (and the only
Family of elasmobranches) listed on CITES Appendix I.
The
Peter Benchley Shark
Conservation Award for Media will be
presented in June in Manila, Philippines at Celebrate the Sea,
the largest Imagery festival in the Asia Pacific region. The
festival, which runs from June 13 to 15, will be attended by
marine photographers and filmmakers from around the world, and
Gloria Arroyo, President of the Philippine Republic.
“Peter Benchley was much more than the Shark Research Institute’s
benefactor, a colleague and friend, he was an eloquent advocate
for shark conservation,” says Stan Waterman. In the 1970s,
Benchley’s fictional best-seller, "Jaws" -- which Spielberg
made into a blockbuster movie -- generated a fear of sharks simply
because so little was known about them. By the 1980s, that fear
had given away to curiosity, resulting in an unprecedented amount
of research on sharks. “When sharks became target species
for Asian markets in the 1990s, scientific data were available
to combat threats to sharks — data which existed due to
the fascination in sharks that Peter had generated,” said
Captain Stephen D. Nagiewicz, Chair of the Shark Research Institute
Board of Trustees. “Peter was an eloquent spokesman for
shark conservation.”
The Shark Research Institute (SRI) is an international multidisciplinary
non-profit organization headquartered in Princeton that sponsors
and conducts research on sharks and promotes the conservation
of sharks. SRI works to correct misperceptions about sharks and
halt the slaughter of up to 100 million sharks annually. One
conservation method used by SRI is creating value for sharks
as sustainable natural resources for the tourism industry, particularly
in developing countries. By so doing, steady revenue streams
are generated for local fishers that might otherwise slaughter
the sharks for immediate gain. SRI has the oldest and largest
whale shark tracking program in the world. Other programs include
satellite and radio telemetry, behavioral and DNA studies of
sharks, environmental advocacy, publications and public education.
