MOTHER’S DAY

Following her mother’s death in 1905, Anna Jarvis conceived Mother’s Day as a way of honouring the sacrifices mothers made for their children and organised the first Mother’s Day celebration at a West Virginia church as a means of honouring the sacrifice mothers make for their children. In 1914 her persistence paid off when President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation making Mother’s Day an official holiday, to take place in the second Sunday of May. Around the world, Mother’s Day is celebrated in a variety of ways and on different dates throughout the year, though many countries observe the holiday on the same day as the United States.

Mother’s Day has now become a commercialised tradition where the emphasis is on profit and not on gratitude. According to Jarvis, people should honour their mothers through handwritten letters expressing their gratitude, instead of wasting money on flower, gifts and pre-made cards, where what counts is love and not money. Children who do not give their mothers the time of day go out of their way to celebrate Mother’s Day showering them with gifts and flowers and even taking them out for a meal. In Sri Lanka, it is a big day of celebration. This year, the Hotels and Restaurants would have felt the pinch since no celebrations were possible on location. Sharks and rays (elasmobranchs) are a unique group of fishes with skeletons made of cartilage.

They play an important role in the marine food web, with many found in the higher trophic levels helping to maintain natural balance. Most elasmobranchs are extremely vulnerable to external pressures, such as fishing, due to their long lives, slow growth rates, late maturity, and low reproductive potential. Unfortunately,overfishing, and other anthropogenic activities have increased the extinction risk of most shark and ray species across their global ranges. They are captured in both target and bycatch (incidental capture) fisheries driven by growing international demand for shark and ray fins, meat, gill plates (from manta and mobula rays), liver oil, and other derivates.

Many of the fisheries resulting in their overexploitation are mismanaged and unregulated. Given that living organisms are interconnected, their presence is important for ecosystem equilibrium. And the removal of even one species, and particularly keystone species like sharks, can have devastating impacts on the ecosystem and associated habitats. In recent years, sharks and rays have received a lot of conservation attention around the world. However, there is still a lot more to be done. To effectively protect them, we have to study their life history, population status, their habitats and movements, and also their definitive role within marine ecosystems. Armed with this information, we will be better placed to provide scientific recommendations to halt population declines and enable recovery of depleted stocks, while supporting sustainable fisheries for the more productive species.

Supporting fisher livelihoods is essential, however for long-term sustainability, we also must consider the survival of the species. If a species goes extinct or is depleted to the extent that commercial fisheries for that species are no longer viable, the associated fisher livelihoods would also collapse. Since 2017, Blue Resources Trust (BRT) have been conducting a systematic shark and ray research project across Sri Lanka. This includes surveys of landing sites to determine the magnitude and composition of Sri Lanka’s shark and ray fisheries and expand available knowledge on their biology and ecology. BRT data have shown that nearly half of the Sri Lankan shark and ray species diversity is present around the Jaffna peninsula. In this region, small-scale artisanal fisheries are prevalent, and their fishing is mostly restricted to the coastal areas.

This area also appears to be key sites for some priority species, such as the sharpnose guitarfish (Glaucostegus granulatus, an IUCN Red List Critically Endangered species). Subsequently, BRT have initiated a project, with support from the Tokyo Cement Group, focusing on identifying the critical habitats of sharks and rays in northern Sri Lanka and to improve understanding of this fishery and associated fisher communities. With this scientific data, it will become possible to recommend effective, sustainable management measures to prevent overfishing of sharks and rays and enable their recovery. Sent By Daniel Fernando – Marine Biologist, Co-Founder of Blue Resources Trust ASSESSING THE CRITICAL HABITATS OF SHARKS AND RAYS AROUND JAFFNA However, we all seemed to have lost the plot on this one. Children who do not give their mothers the time of day go out of their way to celebrate Mother’s Day showering them with gifts and flowers and even taking them out for a meal. In Sri Lanka, it is a big day of celebration.

This year, the Hotels and Restaurants would have felt the pinch since no celebrations were possible on location. However, vendors such as florists, cake shops and takeaway meals manage to make some sale. As usual, most celebrations were uploaded on social media platforms along with photographs with mother surrounded by the goodies she had received and the celebratory meals. What I found quite morbid were the flowers that spelled out ‘amma’ or ‘mum,’ which reminded me of wreaths. Sadly, many who wished to celebrate and wanted to give their mother a hug refrained owing to the virus yet had something delivered with messages full of love. The pandemic certainly has put a damper to this entire industry from which many will not recover. All we can do is be as cautious and responsible as can be and hopefully the virus will die off and life will get back to some form of normalcy.

Children who do not give their mothers the time of day go out of their way to celebrate Mother’s Day showering them with gifts and flowers and even taking them out for a meal. In Sri Lanka, it is a big day of celebration. This year, the Hotels and Restaurants would have felt the pinch since no celebrations were possible on location.