Victims Champion The Sharks That Hurt Them (The International Herald Tribune; Friday, Juli 17, 2009)

Nearly a dozen shark/attack victims -many of them badly scarred or missing limbs- have urged the U.S. Congress to protect a sea creature they'd rather not run into again.

The group wants to strengthen laws protecting sharks from "finning," in which their fins are sliced off and they are left to dead. The growing market for fin meat, adelicacy in Asia, threatens many shark species around the world, they say.

Bull Shark

"We bring pretty instant credibility," Chuck Anderson said Wednesday. He is a school athletic director in Summerdale, Alabama, who spent 13 days in intensive care and lost most of his right arm after being attacked by a bull shark while swimming in the Gulf of Mexico in 2000.

Shark Fin Soup

Mr. Anderson and other attack victims met with senators and staff members here. The lobbying blitz was organized by the Pew Environment Group to pass a bill that would strengthen an existing ban on finning in U.S. waters.

The Measure, which supporters say would close loopholes and allow for stronger enforcement, easily passed the House by voice vote in March and is now in the Senate. Among other things, it would prohibit sea vessels from carrying illegal fins and it would allow the United States to call attention to other nations that are not following through with finning bans.