Dear Friends and Supporters,
As we told you in our last update, SHARK accomplished so much in 2016 that it simply will not fit in one email. This then is Part II of our Year-in-Review.
Please click HERE to read the full mailer we've sent out, and HERE to watch our hard-hitting year-end video.
We implore you to share this email with all your friends and all those who care about animals. Please let them know that the animals need a hard-working group like SHARK and that we need financial support to keep fighting for them.
Victory: Wisconsin Pig Wrestling Event Cancelled!
This past June, a county fair in Wisconsin was planning on having a horrendous pig wrestling contest. When we learned of it we took action, and are pleased to announce that it was cancelled!
SHARK has experience with these spectacles. In 2014 we sent a team of investigators to film a pig wrestling contest that was sponsored by the St. Patrick Parish in Stephensville, Wisconsin. The cruelty was abominable and our video went viral, being viewed more than 136,000 times. Working with our local partners, the Global Conservation Group, we fought hard to convince the church to not allow another pig wrestling event and we won that battle.
SHARK's video documentation of pigs being beaten and abused exposed the senseless cruelty of pig wrestling events
Ground-Breaking Campaign: SHARK Exposes Cormorant Slaughter
In 2016, SHARK took on the government slaughter of cormorants on the Columbia River (bordering Oregon and Washington) and documented the needless killing of cormorants by hired thugs from US Department of Agriculture’s notorious Wildlife Services division. Cormorants are being blamed for eating salmon, while the true destroyer of millions of salmon ever year is the hydro-power system of dams run by the Army Corps of Engineers. That’s right; Army Corps is slaughtering thousands of innocent cormorants to cover up its own incompetence and mass-destruction of salmon.
SHARK fought for cormorants like no other group has. Our boat, the Bob & Nancy, was on the Columbia River for three weeks straight, and the video we recorded of the killing was unprecedented, for Wildlife Services, which slaughters millions of animals every year, is so secretive that rarely is their bloody work ever seen, much less captured on video.
Tragically, the Wildlife Services killers restarted the cormorant slaughter in October, and while the SHARK team was willing to return to face the killers, we did not have the funds. No other group stepped forward to fill the void, and so the killers were allowed to slaughter unchallenged.
When our government acts in such a shameful way, it is important that it be exposed and fought against. That’s why this campaign was so important. No one else would spend so much time and effort to save these majestic birds and we know that because no one but SHARK did.
SHARK has only four full-time investigators who work day and night fighting for animals, and I mean that literally. You will find no more dedicated servants for the animals anywhere and the amount of work we do with so few people humbles me. I’m willing to bet that if you add all of their salaries (I am and have always been unpaid) it will come in under what one top executive of one of the big corporate animal groups rakes in every year. No where else will you find better value for your donation than with SHARK.
I believe in SHARK and our mission. That’s why I implore you to reach out to every one you know, show them what we do, and ask them to help us continue our vital work. I truly appreciate all that you have done for SHARK in the past, and I sincerely hope you will support us so that 2017 may bring even greater victories for the animals we all care about so much.
For the Animals,
Steve Hindi
Founder and President
