Malibu, California (Friday, July 22 2016)
Teaming up with Pretoma in Costa Rica, United Conservationists embarks on a campaign to help stop the consumption of shark fins and end illegal shark finning. Through three dedicated initiatives we donated $30,000 to help fund drone operators in the Cocos Islands, drones were donated by Precision Drone to help deliver the evidence we needed to expose illegal shark finishing. Not only were we able to help use this footage to catch illegal shark finishing but we also managed to capture some amazing footage for the Sharkwater 2; Final Extinction project.
From the funding we also helped to support "Say No to Eating Shark." Pretoma's project focuses on protecting Hammerhead sharks in Costa Rican waters through a number of activities including advocacy and policy work. Reaching the general public with the conservation message would help generate some debate and publicity for an iconic species and an urgent issue.
We also helped to send the leading shark fin identification experts in South America to help identify illegal fins moving through Panama along with run clinics for local enforcement to help educate them on the identification process. This helps us identify more illegal finning and which species of sharks are also the most at risk.