The Sharks Want to Thank Rep. Kyrsten Sinema!!!

As you may or may not have known, I’ve been lobbying local Arizona Congressmen and women to co-sponsor, and ultimately shepherd to law, H.R. 1456, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act.  My local Congresswoman, Democratic Representative Kyrsten Sinema was a particular target of my efforts, as she was the lone holdout Democrat from Arizona’s Congressional delegation, and my own representative in Congress.

I’m happy to say “was” because while you were watching Shark Week,  Rep. Sinema agreed to co-sponsor the legislation!

Thanks for reaching out. We have cosponsored H.R. 1456, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act. – Staff

— Kyrsten Sinema (@SenatorSinema) July 24, 2017

And she was good on her word here.  From the HR 1456 page on the Congress.gov website:

This was a long and arduous effort, at one point I assumed the Congresswoman or staff had muted me on Twitter, because after months of hearing nothing back – from direct reach outs to her via letters, tweets, FB posts, I had heard nothing, until, of course, I saw the above tweet.

I was pretty… vociferous in my requests, at times perhaps crossing the civility line (although it was probably fairly tame compared to what must be an utter deluge in profanity and rape threats that women on the Internet regularly receive), but I’m very glad the Congresswoman did the right thing.

Now we’ve got to shepherd this thing through committee to get to the house floor.   If you’re curious as to who’s on that committee, here’s their website:

Water, Power, and Oceans

If you are the constituent of any of the representatives on that sub-committee, I STRONGLY urge you to contact them and ask them to vote on the bill, and move to the floor of the House for a vote.

If you’re not a constituent, you can contact the sub-committee and request they do the same.

Contact – House Committee on Natural Resources

Sharks need help, the kind of help only Big Government can give them.  By ending the trade of shark fins in America, you will be cutting off a source of revenue from shark fishing, and this will likely allow shark populations in American federal waters to continue to recover, and may slack the the global demand for shark fins by making the prices go beyond the point of profitability.  It will also make America lead by example, with other governments realizing that if *we’re* taking a zero tolerance stance, maybe they should too.

It will also force American companies like FedEx that maybe shipping shark fins is bad for business, or at least not worth their time. Learn more about FedEx and shark fins HERE (via WildAid.Org).

In short, I’m very happy to have Rep. Sinema on board for shark conservation, and hope that in the future, should any shark conservation efforts come before Congress, she takes the lead in spearheading them.  I’m not the only shark lover in AZ-09.