News and Events

Dateline 15th October 2013.

SCS maintains thresher and mako shark databases on its website. SCS director Tony Bennett recently heard of a thresher being sold at Greendale Farm and went to measure it and collect information for the database. When at Greendale he was asked whether selling the thresher was illegal. He responded that to the best of his knowledge it was not illegal. Somehow SCS was mistaken by people at Greendale to be the Shark Trust and Bennett's comment was construed to be approval/permission for selling the shark. This episode then produced a massive amount of social media activity which resulted in both the Shark Trust and SCS having to respond to misunderstandings when their time would have been better spent serving shark conservation.

Greendale Farm did mention to Bennett that they would like to give a donation to a shark conservation NGO. We believe this gesture was made in good faith and in recognition of their having made a mistake. Nevertheless if such a donation were to be received by SCS the Society would not keep it, they would either return it or request permission to give it to someone else e.g. the RNLI or the Mission for Seamen.