Actress January Jones joins Campaign to Save Sharks
Press Release Date: September 30, 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Contact:
Anna Baxter | email: abaxter@oceana.org
Anna Baxter
— Note: High resolution images available upon request
Today ocean conservation group Oceana announced its partnership with Golden Globe nominated actress January Jones. Jones is best known for her role in the American Movie Channel’s (AMC) critically acclaimed Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award-winning series, “Mad Men.” She recently came on board as the spokesperson for Oceana’s campaign to save sharks.
“I have been entranced by sharks ever since I can remember.” said Jones. “They have roamed the oceans for millions of years, but now scientists have found that shark populations are now crashing around the world largely because tens of millions of sharks are killed by commercial fishing each year. We should be scared FOR sharks.”
As mentioned in Vanity Fair’s January 2009 issue, January Jones’ new role with Oceana is “…an apt metaphor for Mad Men, where the sharks are also endangered, at the mercy of greater predators.” Set in the 1960s, January portrays “Betty Draper” a wife and young mother of high powered philandering advertising executive, ‘Don Draper,’ played by Jon Hamm. Her performance in this role earned her a 2009 Golden Globe nomination for “Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama.” The series premiered in July 2007 and returned for its second season in July 2008. The third season will return in August 2009.
Jones is working with Oceana as a spokesperson to help pass The Shark Conservation Act in Congress, which would implement stronger protection for sharks by requiring that sharks be landed whole with the fins still attached to the bodies. The Federal legislation would also allow the U.S. to take action against countries whose shark finning requirements are not consistent with those in the United States.
Ms. Jones is also working with Oceana to create public service announcements (PSAs), about the need to protect and restore shark populations. The PSAs will first appear on TV, radio, magazines and websites later this spring. The PSAs were produced in February 2009 when Jones joined Oceana at the Bimini Biological Field Station in the Bahamas to swim with sharks and see the research being done on local shark populations.
“I swam with sharks to show they aren’t the man-eaters they are sometimes made out to be,” said Jones. “We need to get more people involved and take the steps needed to protect and restore shark populations.”
Jones’ visit to Bimini, along with pictures of her swimming with sharks, is featured in the April 2009 issue of InStyle magazine. To view January Jones’ PSAs, and to sign up for updates about her partnership with Oceana go to Oceana’s new web page: http://www.Oceana.org/scaredforsharks. High resolution photos of January diving with sharks are available upon request.
