Animals & News: 5 Species Of Sharks Are Safe... For Now

Great Hammerhead Shark
Image from Google

A grand victory to the sharks and manta rays this time round!!! Congratulations to the oceanic whitetip; porbeagle, scalloped hammerhead, great hammerhead and smooth hammerhead! Your chances of survival have just been drastically increased! Thank you so much to the people who have been working so hard to get them on CITES' protection lists. All humans owe you a favour.

A mature male porbeagle
Image from Canadian Shark Research lab

The only concern now is whether the fishermen will actually obey to the law and stop fishing the sharks and manta rays on the list. Illegal hunting happens everywhere around the world, and when the hunted sharks are finned, it is almost impossible for amateurs to tell whether the fins are from a shark on the protection list or not.

Fingers crossed, let's hope that I am simply worrying too much.

Let's hope that the demand is really down in China.

bb Sharky X Earth Hour 2013
Image from Locky's English Playground

In order to celebrate this victory and promote the upcoming Earth Hour 2013, I have created my very first animated gif of bb Sharky, you are welcome to download this and share it with your friends. You can also see this logo on our English Playground's title banner. See if bb Sharky blinks one eye to you.

To keep doing my part of the sharks, I will create more bb Sharky logos when I have time.



Vocabulary:
keep one's fingers crossed (for someone or something) and cross one's fingers -- to wish for luck for someone or something, sometimes by actually crossing one's fingers; to hope for a good outcome for someone or something.
blink -- (vb) [I or T] When you blink, you close and then open your eyes quickly once or several times, and when an eye blinks, it does this 

Resources:
Message: New bb Sharky Icon and Page Added @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2013/01/message-new-bb-sharky-icon-and-page.html

Animals: Doing My Part For The Sharks @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2013/01/animals-doing-my-part-for-sharks.html

Good News on the Shark Front @ NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/opinion/good-news-on-the-shark-front.html?_r=0

Shark Species Head for Protected List @  Voice of America
http://www.voanews.com/content/shark-species-head-for-protected-list/1619941.html

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
http://www.cites.org/

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/keep+fingers+crossed
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/blink_1?q=blink