Hi all,
I just wanted to make you aware of a cool event that our LOSTie friend, Todd Cameron, is doing to raise awareness for sharks. He’s swimming about 2300 km over 2 years and finishing with a swim with the sharks in the Bahamas! And you can join him if you want! Pretty cool. Have a read…
Cheers,
Rob
As part of my project SWIMMING FAST – FOR THE SHARKS! I am swimming a
total of 2300km (2.3 million meters) to raise awareness for sharks.
This is the same distance as the length of the Great Barrier Reef, or
like swimming from Toronto to Miami. I have been adding my swim
training and open water race distances over 1.5 years to do this. I am
currently 1555km in. I am planning to finish the 2300km Swim Distance
Challenge for Sharks in April 2014 with EPIC DIVING in Cat Island,
Bahamas; we are shooting a PSA shark awareness video to conclude the
swim with a 5km swim and a week with the incredible, rare,
and beautiful Oceanic Whitetip sharks. Oceanics are unfortunately
highly prized on the Asian markets for their large, long round fins.
Also a huge thank you to ARENA Swimwear for sponsoring me on this
project with the Powerskin R-EVO open water suit and gear!
Sharks are one of the most important species on our blue planet, the top predator in our largest ecosystem and they have been around for hundreds of millions of years. In reality they are far from the monsters we see in movies and media. Sharks on average kill less than 10 people a year globally, yet humans slaughter more than 100 million sharks a year, a large percentage in a horrible and barbaric act known
as ‘shark finning’ in which the sharks are caught on hooked long lines, hauled aboard to have their fins sliced off while they are still alive and then dumped back overboard to drown. Shark fin soup is a nutritionless, poisonous (it is loaded with mercury), highly overpriced dish in the Asian culture (a bowl in Toronto can go for $100) and is very likely the pinnacle of waste, ignorance, and
absolute environmental destruction in how we blindly abuse and mass
commodify animals as a food source. The fight against shark finning is
not an issue against tradition, but an issue against animal cruelty,
extinction, and ultimately for our own survival.
I have been fortunate to layer my passion for swimming and sharks to
help raise awareness and elicit some much needed change for sharks any
way I can. I train and race open water as a vegan athlete on a 100%
plant-based diet and also coach the sport as well. My goal (if an
injury permits) is to race the 10k event at the professional level.
You can find more info on my project and follow updates on the 2300km
Swim Distance Challenge progress on the website and Facebook Page.
Always keep your FINS UP!
Todd Cameron
http://www.swimmingfastforsharks.org/
https://www.facebook.com/swimmingfastforsharks