I saw a horrific video online of a captured shark in Western Australia being hung up by it's neck and tortured brutally with it's body cut open and being hit over the head with a metal pole. So i wondered why are these people not being jailed or even fined, I then found out more about the Western Australia animal laws and read the following.
"A person must not be cruel to an animal" which carries a minimum penalty of $2,000 and a maximum penalty of $50,000 and 5 years in jail.
So why has nothing been done? well in the Animal Welfare act 2002 it reads:
Animal means " A live Vertabrate or a live Invertabrate of a prescribed kind, other than a human or fish (As defined in the fish resources Animal Management Act 1994)
If Sharks were classed as Animals by law then people like this would not get away with cruelty to Sharks which like us humans and other animals suffer pain and stress.
The video can be seen here and all information is from http://www.sharkalarm.com.au/news
My aim for this petition is so that Sharks can be classed as animals in the eyes of the WA law and then we won't see videos such as this!
