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Desi Please

The Whale Shark Whisperer

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India, where even sharks are vegetarian

This may be one of the rare instances where state sponsored religion achieved something positive.

A religious man has convinced fishermen in Gujarat to stop hunting whale sharks where hundreds of them are killed despite a government ban.

In an unconventional marriage of religion and environmentalism, a religious guru was able to achieve what Governmental decrees were unable to prevent - the poaching of whale sharks off the coast of Gujarat.

The dried fin of a whale shark can fetch up to five thousand rupees and as much money for its meat.
Thousands of whale sharks visit us the coast of Gujarat between November and April each year.
Whale sharks are rare fish and not much is known about them except that they are migratory.
Many of them come from Australia through the warm waters of the Indian ocean to Gujarat. For the last few decades they were slaughtered in the thousands every season for their meat.

The government passed an act back in 2001 banning the fishing of these gentle giants but this was largely ineffective. The compliance of the local fishermen with this act was accentuated by the lack of enforcement.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests banned the hunting and killing of sharks when they put all sharks on schedule one of the wildlife act in July 2001.
But this hardly stopped the trade as not surprisingly there was no enforcement of the ban.

At their wits end, the government officials turned to spiritual powers, literally.

Morari Bapu is the first religious guru in the country to take up the cause of wildlife and will pioneer the ‘Save the Whale Shark Campaign’ on Gujarat’s Saurashtra coast where the world’s longest fish, a Schedule-I animal, is being slaughtered.
He has been roped in by the Wildlife Trust of India, one of India’s leading conservation organisations, which will work along with the Gujarat forest department to protect the fish.

His message is simple, he uses religious clichés like ‘ahimsa hi param dharma’ (non-violence is the greatest religion) and ‘atithi devo bhava’ (guest is god). Simple but apparently effective.
Update (thanks to the uber tip from Bess):
This story is in sharp contrast to another one involving sharks and religious leader. A pastor in San Francisco was busted by authorities for involvment in a smuggling ring - smuggling baby sharks.

Federal officials have broken up a major wildlife smuggling ring led by a pastor at a San Francisco Bay area church. The smugglers pulled thousands of baby leopard sharks from the bay, then sold the live sharks to pet stores and private buyers around the world.

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