I’ve been reading a lot about Rob Stewart these last weeks. You’ve probably heard of him; he was the photographer/conservationist who died on January 31st scuba diving off the coast of the Florida Keys. Rob was a Canadian who had for many years devoted his life to saving sharks. His goal was to educate people on sharks, and their rapid decline in our oceans at the hands of over-fishing, cruelty, and damage to habitat.
There aren’t a lot of people who are willing to dedicate their lives so definitely to something, especially when there’s not much money in it, and when a lot of the time, it will feel like no one is listening.
Though I feel like I’m always head first in all news related to wildlife conservation, I seemed to have missed the name Rob Stewart until his recent death. I hadn’t heard of his movie, Sharkwater, and hadn’t known about his work with Greenpeace and other organizations to help contribute to safety of sharks in our oceans.
Since then, I’ve read up a lot. Rob was working on his next movie, Sharkwater: Extinction, when he died. Though it sounds so cliche, it’s awesome that he died doing the thing he loved most. I can only hope the same happens to me (in many, many years from now).
That said, Rob’s death needn’t be in vain. There are those who knew his name well, and those, like me, who are just learning it. For all that, his voice and his message -- and in that, his hope to save sharks -- are out in the world now, in full force.
Rob’s first film was heavily focused on banning shark fin soup. In Asia, no one knows quite how, there grew the belief that this soup has medicinal benefits. It’s total bullshit. It has no nutritional value even - so definitely no healing agents. In fact, if you did get a shark fin soup, it would be flavourless entirely unless it was flavoured with beef or pork. It’s said that the belief arised because it was believed that sharks don’t get sick -- that they suffer no ailments, and it’s unheard of to hear of a shark with cancer.
Sometimes I am scared of the crazy shit the world can convince itself of.
No. No. No. Sharks can get sick. Sharks are not immune to illness, nor to cancer. Eating their fin DOES NOT MEAN that you will never get cancer.
There. Mind blown. Total obliteration.
It seems silly that someone had to work so hard to create a film to tell us this truth, but it’s true. Rob worked with various teams to bring real life examples to life... not just about the harvesting of too many sharks for shark fin soup, but also long-ling fishing (which is still done illegally all over the planet), and the senseless killing of these animals.
Did you know that the Great White Shark is endangered? I know, it seems ridiculous. But, it’s true. And if we don’t do something, it’ll be the last of them. Goodbye Great White Shark. Let’s not let Jaws be all we know of these creatures.
You can find Sharkwater on Vimeo. Google search it. Watch it. Learn about this story. Knowledge is power - let us all share Rob’s message that he worked so hard to share with the world. He’s no longer with us, but it’s our responsibility as participants in the conservation community to carry on the work of our fellow conservationists.
