Kristin Bauer: Let’s Save Sharks This Shark Week

I might play a blood-sucking vampire on “True Blood,” but in real life I’m a devoted animal lover and conservationist.

In the past few weeks, I’ve followed the proposed ban on the shark fin trade in California, and – in honor of Shark Week – I wanted to share a letter I recently wrote to California State Senator Paul Fong asking for his help to protect sharks:

Dear Assemblymember Fong and Members of the Legislature:

As an advocate for healthy oceans, I am writing in support of Assembly Bill 376 which will protect sharks and our ocean ecosystems by ending our state’s contribution to the global shark fin trade.

As you may be aware, sharks play an essential role in maintaining ocean health as top predators — they’ve done it for more than 400 million years but now their decline threatens to destabilize the food web and impact commercially caught fish and shellfish species. We have a responsibility to protect these keystone predators.

To read the rest of Kristin’s letter, and get involved, head over to Oceana.org