More than 100 million sharks are killed for their fins every year, and more than 30 per cent of species are threatened or near-threatened by extinction – figures that Taylor Finderup, 15, can recount instantly.
The Kapiti College student launched Stop With Finning, her campaign to end unsustainable shark finning in New Zealand, at the age of just 13, after a “super lightbulb moment” while watching Shark Week programming on the Discovery Channel.
Taylor Finderup Photo: Supplied
“They had these facts coming up between programmes and one of them said ‘Did you know that some shark populations have decreased by 98 per cent in the last years’, and I was like, ‘Why? What has the potential to kill 98 per cent of a population like that?’
“I found out it was shark fin soup, and I just knew that I wanted to do something about it.”
But the charities she contacted to find out how she could get involved called her “sweetie” and told her “there wasn’t much for kids at the moment” – so she decided to go out on her own.
“No one really understood it at first – why does a 13-year-old girl love sharks?” she says. “I kept getting told I was just a kid, so I thought, ‘Oh well, I’ll do it myself then’.”
She set up a website and a Facebook page – which now has more than a thousand Likes – for Stop With Finning. From there she created a logo, which she prints on stickers, badges and T-shirts.
Having lived in Singapore for three years, Finderup knows the importance of shark fin soup to Asian cultures, having eaten a fair share of it herself. She stresses she’s not against the tradition of finning, but wants to see it practiced more sustainably.
With over 100 million sharks killed for their fins every year, the practice has led to a global decline in shark populations, which has had significant repercussions for the delicate balance of the marine ecosystem. If current trends continue, it’s predicted there will be no sharks left in 30 years’ time.
Although the finning of live sharks was banned in New Zealand in 2009, finning them, killing them and throwing them back into the water remained legal until January this year.
The Government’s initial plan had been to phase in the ban from October 1, with full implementation by October 2016, to allow the industry time to adjust – but Conservation Minister Nick Smith announced on Wednesday the timetable had been brought forward, in part because of pressure from the public and campaigners like Finderup.
In December, Finderup was entrusted with handing over the 78,000 signatures in support of banning all shark finning to Smith and his fellow minister Nathan Guy – one of her “biggest achievements”. “You can try and make a change in your own life as much as you want but realistically laws, legislations, regulations don’t happen until the big guys come on board with it,” she says.
LISTEN TO an interview with “shark whisperer” Ocean Ramsey.
But Finderup admits it can be hard to convince people of the impact of finning. “You just have to…show them the bigger picture,” she says. “Say, ‘Well, with no sharks our oceans die and when our oceans die there goes 70 per cent of the oxygen we breathe’.”
Sharks’ bad PR doesn’t help. Finderup can’t help but love the movie Jaws, but credits it with perpetuating mistruths about the fish. While she accepts sharks can be dangerous, most of the time attacks are freak accidents in which people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Though the support of high-profile New Zealanders like radio personality Polly Gillespie, singer-songwriter Jamie McDell and ITM Fishing Show host Matt Watson has helped her cause, writing to local MPs, councils, and even individual restaurants that serve shark fin soup have been important parts of the process, she says. “Most of the time you won’t get a reply but you just hope that someone’s read it.”
WATCH Taylor Finderup’s TEDx talk from the end of last year, which she says opened the door to the larger scientific and environmental communities:
Today, she’s a Youth Ambassador for the New Zealand Shark Alliance, and is involved in Sustainable Coastlines, Sea Shepherd and a number of other environmental and animal rights groups.
She says advocacy is “quite a priority” for her, despite her age. “I’m 15 – I don’t exactly have my purpose in life yet but you know I have a good sense of where I’m going. ... At the end of the day it’s not about me and that’s what I really want people to know.
“It’s purely for the ocean and for the sharks, so every time I speak I just think that’s another 500 people who know about shark finning.”
Finderup urges people to get behind a cause of their own, even if just to raise awareness of it. “There are so many things you can do, even just signing petitions online – it takes 30 seconds, but that’s one extra signature that could help pass a law.”
She says young people, in particular, seem “quite afraid to stand out for something”: “I’d like to hope that by me spreading this [message], not only am I a voice for other youth, but hopefully a voice for anyone who feels passionately about these issues.
“Not too long ago, I got an email from a girl who said she wanted to be just like me when she grows up – and I was like ‘Honey, I’m not even grown up myself, you know’.”
She’s had to miss the odd day of school to campaign, but says Kapiti College has backed her from the start. “It’s a bit of effort sometimes, but you’ve just got to think of the sharks while you’re doing it all.”
Taylor Finderup will be speaking at the Festival For The Future next month.
This content is brought to you with funding assistance from New Zealand On Air.