Marine crusader: Katrina Subedar
Our marine conservation advocate – Katrina Subedar - loves everything in our ocean, but especially sharks and stingrays !
Since a young age she has been a water baby. She grew up in Northland near to Leigh Marine reserve and soon after learning to swim, she picked up snorkelling, scuba diving and sailing.
At 10 years old she knew she wanted to be a marine biologist!
Her favourite animals in the ocean are our stingrays & sharks – theseanimals have been on this earth for 400 million years. They are even older than dinosaurs and trees!
While she was a marine biology student at Auckland University, she worked at Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World aquarium which allowed her to get up close and personal with stingrays and sharks.
This gave her a chance to admire their effortless movement and learn about their incredible physical make-up.
They’re not only super-smellers, they have seven senses - two more than us!
And although they’re some of the oldest creatures on this planet we don’t know much about them.
At Forest & Bird she is working to stop the practise of shark-finning – something that is legal in this county.
Sharks all around the world are having their fins lopped off for a delicacy called shark-fin soup.
Thanks Katrina for protecting our marine environment and helping to keep our sharks in our waters and out of our soup!
To find out more about our shark pledge see here.
