The Dorsal Fin

Real Business’ Lush hooks customers with gruesome window display reports about an anti-finning window display appearing at Lush cosmetics stores. According to the article, a former Lush employee and performance artist, Alice Newstead, has been painting herself silver and hanging herself from the ceiling in “a dramatic illustration of shark finning.” The display is part of a campaign between Lush and Sea Shepherd to end overfishing.

Newstead first appeared in the display in London last year…

The display appeared in Paris earlier this month, and the next stop is New York City.

A woman being suspended by hooks from the ceiling of a cosmetics store is certainly a “unique” way to promote shark conservation, to say the least, but it does seem like the display is grabbing the attention of people. Hopefully, that attention will, in turn, lead to an increased awareness about the rapidly declining number of sharks, due to finning and over-fishing.

Last week, a story about 4 shark fishermen being rescued from “shark-infested” waters in New York was featured at various media outlets.

The charter boat that the fishermen were aboard began taking on water, and the men sent out a distress call. Fortunately, two off-duty Marine Bureau officers heard the distress call, responded to the scene, and were able to rescue the fishermen within minutes of their boat sinking.

Fox 5 News in New York ran a segment on this story, in which the threat of shark attacks was strongly emphasized. The segment also features obligatory references to Jaws.

(continue reading…)