Shark Fin Soup

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THE KOD

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is there anything wrong with this picture ?


like where is the rest of the fawking sharks ?
 

THE KOD

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In the last fifteen years demand for shark fin soup has boomed in Asia. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are the main shark fin trading centres. Asian consumers are unaware of the cruelty and unsustainability of the shark fin trade. Increasingly on the high seas sharks are ?finned? and the rest of their bodies, often still alive, are dumped at sea. Shark meat is often too low-value compared to the target species (e.g. tuna) so 95-99% of the shark is discarded to conserve hold space. Shark fin provides gelatinous bulk in shark fin soup, but it has no taste ? the soup has to be flavoured with chicken or other stock. While a fisherman in India will earn only $6 per pound of shark fin, a bowl of soup can cost $100 in a Hong Kong restaurant.

Call for ban on shark-finning in Thai waters

SHARKS around the world, including those in Thai waters, are threatened with unsustainable exploitation due to increasing demand for sharkfin soup and indiscriminate fishing, a wildlife conservation group warned yesterday.

Tens of millions of sharks are killed every year, with at least 8,000 tonnes of sharkfins shipped to restaurants around the world, WildAid said.

WildAid spent two years surveying 12 countries, including the main consuming markets and major shark-fishing nations, to check the latest status of the shark.

"Fishermen in all countries confirmed that the shark is hardly found anymore and its size when caught is getting smaller," WildAid director Peter Knights said.

"In Costa Rica, the shark population has declined 80 per cent in the past 10 years, while the rate in North America is as high as 90 per cent in the past 15 years," WildAid co-director Steven Galster added.

Growing demand for sharkfins, coupled with the increasing prosperity of Asian countries, had propelled illegal shark-finning in 70 to 80 marine parks and conservation areas, the report said.

WildAid, a non-profit conservation group based in the United States, launched its report entitled The End of the Line in Bangkok yesterday as part of its global campaign to save the shark. The report will be further publicised in Britain, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the United States.

The campaign in Thailand was backed by famous local film director MC Chatreechalerm Yukol, an avid diver with 40 years of experience. "I found fewer sharks during my diving in the past ten years," the director said.

The WildAid report and investigative footage show that sharks are often pulled from the water to have their fins sliced off while they are still alive, and then thrown back into the ocean to slowly die.

Large indiscriminate fishing operations have led to a global catch of sharks that now totals over one million tonnes per year, with virtually no controls on commercial trade.

WildAid and MC Chatreechalerm yesterday called on the Thai and other Asian governments to help protect the fish by declaring a ban on shark-finning in their waters.

Governments should also conduct field research to update their figures on shark populations off their shores, they said, as well as the current situation of shark fisheries in order to pave the way for a proper master-plan for sustainable shark-fishery management.

Four countries have already declared a shark-finning ban in their waters - Brazil, the US, Costa Rica and Australia.

The Thai government should urgently conduct a study as recommended recently by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which asked member countries to submit a national plan of action for sharks as a first step towards the management and conservation of sharks, Knights said
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good thing there is no such thing as
deer tongue soup.


:SIB
 

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Published: January 5, 2006

MANTA, Ecuador - Early every morning, the cold water lapping up on the beach here is stained red with blood as surly, determined men in ragged T-shirts drag hundreds of shark carcasses off wooden skiffs and onto the white sand.

In Asia the fins sell for up to $700 per kilogram. Biologists say the trade is killing off the species and threatening ecosystems.
Using eight-inch boning knives with quick precision, they cut off the fins - dorsal and pectorals - a "set" that can fetch $100 or more.

"That is what is really important, the fins," said Luis Salto, 57, as he cut up sharks. "They sell in China."

Indeed, the fins are exported in a quasi-legal network to Hong Kong, Beijing, Taiwan, Singapore and other corners of Asian affluence. There, a heaping bowl of shark fin soup, said to offer medicinal or aphrodisiac qualities, is dished up for up to $200.

This taste for fins, marine biologists say, is ridding the world's oceans of one of its most ancient creatures, threatening ecosystems already buffeted by overfishing. Some sharks, like the hammerhead and the great white, have been reduced by upwards of 70 percent in the last 15 years, while others, like the silky white tip, have disappeared from the Caribbean.

"If you go to any reef around the world, except for those that are really protected, the sharks are gone," said Ransom Myers, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "Their value is so great that completely harmless sharks, like whale sharks, are killed, for their fins."

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization conservatively estimates that 856,000 tons of shark and their cousins, rays and skates, were caught in 2003. That is triple the quantity 50 years before, as shark fin soup has caught on as an Asian status symbol.

Fins sell for as much as $700 per kilogram in Asia, making big sharks worth thousands of dollars. In the vast dried seafood market of Sai Ying Pun on Hong Kong Island on a recent day, shark fin stores had no shortage of buyers.

"Serving shark fins in banquets is a tradition for Chinese people," said Chiu Ching-cheung, chairman of the Shark Fin Trade Merchants' Association in Hong Kong. "Without shark fin, a Chinese banquet does not look like one at all."

Shark fin soup - which can have mushrooms, fine dried ham, other seafood and clear chicken stock or water, simmered for up to eight hours - is common at wedding banquets or other celebrations. Served to impress guests, it has grown more popular, environmentalists say, as China's middle class has expanded.

"Catching sharks, for a lot of fishermen, was not a viable financial proposition because the meat was of low value," said Peter Knights, executive director of Wild Aid, a San Francisco-based environmental group. "That's all changed now because the fins are so valuable."

While Asia's environmental movement has grown, with aid of stars like Jackie Chan and the director Ang Lee, experts say education on overfishing is an uphill battle. With the waters off Asia largely depleted, fishermen are focusing on regions that still swarm with sharks, like the cold, deep waters of the Pacific from Peru north to Central America.

On a recent day, Captain Nelson Laje, 42, piloted a 60-ton trawler, La Ahijada, into Manta's port, its hold filled with 150 blues and threshers, among the most common of Pacific sharks. His crew tied chains around bundles of sharks, which were hoisted onto the wharf to be quickly heaved onto refrigerated trucks.

"They do not want us to capture the sharks, but we need them to pay our expenses and make a living," Mr. Laje said. "The shark, the fishing, will never end. Fishing will only end when the water ends."

Some of the world's richest fishing grounds, full of everything from tuna to white fish of all kinds, are found off this tiny Andean country. There are also up to 38 species of shark.

By a conservative estimate, more than 279,000 pounds of shark fins, representing about 300,000 sharks, were exported from Ecuador to China and Hong Kong in 2003, twice as much as in the mid-1990's. Under pressure from environmental groups, Ecuador prohibited exporting shark fins in 2004. Fishing for sharks is also illegal, though fishermen are permitted to possess and sell sharks they catch incidentally.

But with resources for enforcement inadequate and an influential fishing industry bucking regulations, Ecuador's government has been unable to contain shark fishing, the exportation of fins or the internationally reviled practice of finning, where the fins of sharks are sliced off on the high seas and the carcass is left behind, environmentalists and the Environment Ministry say.

More than 60 countries have banned finning since 2004.

Alfredo Carrasco, an Environment Ministry official who oversees natural resources management, acknowledged that the lack of resources permits "illegal actions." But he also put blame on Asian countries, where fin imports are legal.

Eloy Chiquito, 43, begins his day at 5 a.m., when he arrives at Manta's beach with his knife. Mr. Chiquito says he knows the shark population is being cut back. But he argues that there are still days when hundreds of sharks are dragged onto the beach, a sign to him that shark populations remain healthy. "We can get 50 or hundreds," he said.

When Antonio Llambo, a navy inspector, arrived on a recent day to warn about fines and other penalties, the men with the knives barely glanced up. The buyers did not lose a step, scrambling over shark carcasses with fistfuls of dollars.

"That's the dynamic in Ecuador - people do what is illegal," Mr. Llambo said, with a look of resignation. :scared
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THE KOD

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"That's the dynamic in Ecuador - people do what is illegal," Mr. Llambo said, with a look of resignation. :scared
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yeh so do our politicians in America

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THE KOD

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You're eating shark cartilage. The fin is boiled for a long time until it separates into clear noodle-like cartilage. It's tasteless. You gotta eat it with chicken broth and some other stuff. So what, exactly is the point of eating something that has no taste?!!! Is it because of it's supposed nutritional value?!! Well, the Chinese think that shark fin is a kind of tonic which helps do all sorts of magical things while other people say shark fin is a good source of protein and helps rebuild cartilage (you get shark cartilage!) but SCIENTIFICALLY, shark fin has little nutritional value. In fact, it may even be harmful to your health over the long term, as shark fins have been found to contain high levels of mercury. Anyway if you want protein, there are SO MANY OTHER sources of healthy protein. Go eat salmon, its a superfood - proteins, omega 3s, antioxidants -
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Sharks existed before there were dinosaurs and they pre-date humans by millions of years. Yet, in a relatively short period of time, humans and their technological arsenal have driven most shark populations to the verge of extinction.

This is bad news for the world's oceans. Sharks are the top predator in the ocean and are vital to its ecosystem. The rapid reduction of sharks is disrupting the ocean's equilibrium, according to Peter Knights, director of WildAid International.

"These are ecosystems that have evolved over millions and millions of years," said Knights. "As soon as you start to take out an important part of it, it's like a brick wall, you take out bricks [and] eventually it's going to collapse."

When sharks attack humans, it inevitably makes news - it is a sexy story. What is rarely reported is that worldwide, sharks kill an average of 10 people every year. It's usually when people venture into a shark's habitat and not the other way around. By contrast, humans kill around 100 million sharks every year - a number that has ballooned in recent years because of the enormous demand for shark fins to make shark fin soup.

Shark fin soup is a delicacy reserved for the wealthy on special occasions and it has been part of Chinese culture for centuries. For years, only rich Chinese mostly in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore consumed it, so the impact on the overall shark population was negligible.

Over the last decade, the exploding middle class in China has changed the fate of the shark. With an unprecedented number of people making more money than ever, the demand for all things that signal an improvement in status is gargantuan. The ability to serve and consume shark fin soup is among the most revered of activities, because it signifies that one has made it.

Shark fin soup can be expensive. A bowl of imperial shark fin soup can cost upwards of $100. These days, shark fin soup is so fashionable that it's becoming commonplace. Buffets serve versions of it for as low as $10 a bowl. The irony is that shark fin is flavorless -- its cartilage has a chewy consistency. Tens of thousands of sharks are being killed for a gelatinous thing in a soup.

To satiate the appetites of upwardly mobile Chinese, fishermen traverse all corners of the Earth's oceans in search of sharks or, more specifically, their fins. Because space is limited on fishing vessels and shark bodies are bulky and not considered as valuable, fishermen often catch the sharks, saw off their fins and toss the sharks back into the water. Without their fins, sharks cannot swim and they sink to the ocean floor, where they're picked at by other fish and left to die. See photos of Taiwan's shark finning trade ?

The "Planet in Peril" crew traveled with Knights to Taiwan's southern port city of Kaohsiung, which is considered one of the world's main hubs for shark fins. We watched as the fishermen unloaded their catch. Thousands of fins were thrown from one of the ships that had spent months fishing the international waters of the Pacific.

Shark finning is not illegal. Taiwan has no law against fins taken from international waters coming into its ports. However, Taiwan does have what it calls a "plan of action" that requires the bodies of the sharks the fins came from to be accounted for and not dumped into the sea.

But at this port, we see more fins than bodies as a forklift scoops up large piles of fins and dumps them into a truck. There are no signs of anyone monitoring the weight ratio or making sure there's no illegal fishing of the five shark species protected under international treaty.

"The laws are weak and when you take the fins off, identifying these species is almost impossible," Knights said. "You can see they all look almost identical and yet they're makos and threshers and blue sharks; there [are] all kinds of species there, but identifying them and monitoring them and having a regulated fishery is virtually impossible."

Taiwan is not alone. Shark finning thrives off weak regulations around the world and only a few countries demand that sharks arrive in port with fins attached.

Knights says it comes down to economics.

"The fin is one of the most expensive pound-for-pound item from the sea. And the beauty about the fin is that it's very compact ... it doesn't take up your hull and you can make a lot of money from it," said Knights.

Fins can sell for $500 per pound, according to WildAid, which is campaigning for a global ban on shark finning.

In recent years, Cocos Island has become another battleground in the fight to save the shark.

Located 300 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, the only way to get to this uninhabited islet in the eastern Pacific is by boat. Cocos Island, recently declared a national park, is a nearly pristine and richly preserved ecosystem where thousands of sharks have roamed for centuries. Scientists think there are more sharks there than any other place on Earth.

Fishermen come from all over the world to catch the sharks that swim around the island. It is illegal for fishing boats to get within three miles of the island, but the law is routinely ignored. On any given day, one can see numerous fishing boats no more than a mile away from the island.

The fate of the shark is grim. Increasing public awareness of the shark's role in the marine ecosystem and the rapid rate of extinction because of the demand for shark fin soup may be the best hope for the shark, which has inhabited the planet for 400 million years.

"Can you imagine if it was Yellowstone Park and people were shooting up grizzlies? No one would ever get away with it. But this ocean, because it's out of sight, out of mind, [shark finning] carries on," said Knights.
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are any fisherman in this forum outraged by this ?

or is this like throwin a catfish on the bank to rot in the sun
 
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