Some of Madison Stewart's earliest memories come from the Great Barrier Reef: the school of bream she saw while snorkeling at age 6, the moray eel that made her leap from the water "like a penguin."
But it's sharks that have shaped Stewart's life. At 14, she noticed an eerie lack of these apex predators on a dive in the reef. Now 20, this conservationist and filmmaker stars in a new documentary drawing attention to the plight of the animals she thinks of as family.
"My digging helped me find out that there was a legal shark fishery inthe Great Barrier Reef, and it's been operating for more than 20 years now," Stewart told Live Science. About two-thirds of the reef is open to fishing, and 80,000 sharks per year can be caught legally from the water. The fins are exported, she said, and most of the meat is sold in Australia, often labeled "flake." The data on the sustainability of this fishery, however, is lacking.
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