Wetpixel friend and member Neil Hammerschlag has alerted us that the state of North Carolina is considering relaxing their ban on shark finning.  According to the Ocean Conservancy:

“The U.S. was one of the first countries in the world to ban shark finning (the wasteful practice of slicing off a shark’s fins and discarding the body back to the sea).  Shark finning prohibitions were first adopted for the U.S. Atlantic and, with your help, have spread to the U.S. Pacific, many other countries, and most of the world’s international waters.

But now North Carolina commercial fishermen are attempting to reverse this progress by relaxing shark finning rules. We need your help to block this troubling maneuver. Lawmakers need to hear that the public, especially those from North Carolina, still strongly opposes the finning of sharks. Please take action today by urging your U.S. Senators to keep the shark finning ban strong.”

Click through to read more about it, and email your representative.  Click the blue button to “take action.”  This is especially important if you are in North Carolina, however if you are from out of state, you can still email your representative as a concerned visitor to N.C.

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Wetpixel member Bruce Yates has put together a fantastic 2007 calendar of his underwater images to raise money for the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation.  They’re only USD $22.99 and ALL profits go to help a great cause—funding research to find a cure for PKD! (Only available in the U.S.A. at this time)

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I have made some changes to the Wetpixel Picture of the Week Contest:

• Entries in open competitions are now ordered by date and time submitted. This means that if you submit an entry early, your photo is more likely to be shown at the top of the page during voting.
• You may now hide individual entries during voting to reduce clutter on the screen. My recommendation for voting is to show all of the pages (click on "All" in the page selector) and then hide all of the entries you don't like. From your new short list, vote for your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place entries.

Good luck! As a reminder, new contests spawn every Sunday night at midnight, and you can always see the next week's topic in each contest's description.

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There has been a lot of discussion here on Wetpixel about losing equipment while travelling through Puerto Rico’s Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport (SJU) in San Juan.  We have received confirmation that thieves at the airport are continuing to target both topside and underwater camera gear in checked baggage.  If you travel with expensive gear, please use caution when deciding on a route that goes through Puerto Rico.  I myself decided some time ago that I will not fly through Puerto Rico again until the crime ring is caught.

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The British Society of Underwater Photographers invites entries for its second, annual International Focus On Competition. The competition is free to enter and open to all underwater photographers. There is no theme - the only rule is that your photograph must have been taken underwater. Each photographer can enter just one image, uploaded via the BSoUP website, and the deadline for entries is Tuesday 15th August 2006 at 23:59:59 hours BST.

Unusually, the images are judged by the audience of experienced underwater photographers at the Society’s meeting on Wednesday 16th August and the winner will receive the International Focus On Competition trophy and also the kudos of knowing that their image was voted for by their peers. Wetpixel’s own Mike Veitch won the competition last year.

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