Horrendous video footage from Kesen-Numa City, Japan

If you thought shark finning was exclusively a Chinese problem, think again. Welcome to Kesen-numa City, Japan's shark fin capital.

Here, six days a week, small teams of Japanese workers go about the hushed business of industrial shark-finning.

By 6.30am, with piles arranged, the sharks are disemboweled first. Hearts are ripped efficiently from bodies by men wearing brightly coloured rubber boots and aprons. At 7am, shark corpses are cleaned of their blood by workers wielding water hoses. And by 8am, small teams are silently moving up and down aisles and rows like robots in a Japanese car factory, quickly slicing off every dorsal, pectoral and tail fin from the lifeless, grey lumps. Big hungry black crows squawk in the shadows, looking for bloody morsels. And shark fins plop with regularity into small yellow plastic baskets. The baskets fill up fast, are then weighed, and finally carried to a nearby truck, where a man with a notepad strikes a deal. At 9.30am, it's all over for another day. Fork lift trucks scoop up tons of limbless carcasses, then dump them into a high-sided truck. The process is a brutal sight to behold, and not for the faint-hearted.

The fishing port of Kesen-numa City is located in Miyagi Prefecture in North East Japan, and is the country's only port dedicated to catching sharks.

Over two days in early July this year, I saw 119 tons of blue shark (Prionace glaucaof), ten tons of salmon shark (Lamna ditropis), and three tons of short fin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) landed on the dock at Kesen-numa. Not to mention several tons of endangered bluefin tuna, (Thunnus thynnus), but that's a whole other story. Taking government transparency to another level, landed shark tonnage numbers are provided daily by the port of Kesen-numa's Japanese only website, which is publicly, (and apparently unashamedly), available.

Could a new battle between marine conservationists battling to save the sharks and the Japanese fishing lobby be on the horizon? First there was the annual showdown in the Southern Ocean between the Japanese whaling fleet and the environmental groups Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd to save the whale. Then there was the runaway success of the Oscar-winning documentary 'The Cove'. One would think the tide is slowly turning. Is it not time Kesen-numa City, Japan's dirty little shark secret, was shut down next?

Guillame Nery's amazing BASE jumping free dive video

This is quite simply amazing!



Please watch with an open mind-it is a delight and testament to the videographers art, rather than a factual piece!

Mike Elliot's Escape video

The Maldives (shot by Howard Hall on a RED camera!)

Smile!

Howard Hall shooting RED in the Cocos

Cocos 2010 from Howard Hall on Vimeo.

Late availability, week live aboard trip 4-11 July

Red Sea Schooling fish safari 4-11 July 2010



I have some late availability for a week-long live aboard trip, concentrating on following the large schools that form around Ras Mohamed. The boat is Snapdragon-I have just spent two weeks on her, and she is excellent! The itinerary will be flexible, allowing the option of going where the action is! The boat will depart/return to Sharm el Sheikh, and the cost is £750. Please contact me for more details!

BP Deals with a coffee spill

Image slide show from the Red Sea

Underwater photography slideshow from the Red Sea from Adam Hanlon on Vimeo.

Back from the Red Sea

I'm just adjusting back to normal life after two weeks in the Red Sea, on board Snapdragon with Red Sea Snapper Safaris. It was an amazing two weeks! Lots of great diving and amazing photographic opportunities. I have narrowed the 2000 or so images down, and plan to start getting some of them on-line over the next week or so.

Many thanks to Pete, Duncan and all the Snapdragon crew. We have spaces for our July trip still and it promises to be even better! Please contact me if you are interested.