Sean developed an iPhone app to help border control and law enforcement personnel to identify traded fins from five especially threatened shark species (scalloped hammerhead, great hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and porbeagle). He developed the app based on a paper and web-based fin guide produced by Debra Abercrombie and Dr. Demian Chapman (www.sharkfinid.org). Sean worked directly with the scientists and policy experts at the Pew Charitable Trust’s Global Shark Campaign. The prototype app was an important part of successful advocacy efforts to list these species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in March 2013. It will be launched and made freely available to potential users as the new trade restrictions on these species take force in late 2014.
Sean Darsee (MA, 2012)
