OMG! I confess that years ago I had nightmares after sitting through the movie “Jaws.” I hated sharks, I feared sharks.
Now I am trying to defend not eliminating more sharks, because oceanographers, ichthyologists, and other experts, have reported that Man has eliminated 90% of most sharks that last few decades. OK, a few men are guilty, but most men are not guilty.
Man has been very efficient at the game of “finning sharks.” Drop some dry blood anywhere in the ocean where sharks are nearby, and it won’t be long until these sea creatures with special sensors evolved from thousands of years of existence will hone in to the location of blood. With electronic sensors and inexpensive dried fish blood, the continued pursuit of sharks will likely result in the elimination of 99% of all sharks in a decade of two.
It should be noted that the population of China/Asia is getting larger, not smaller. As the middle and upper class of China/Asia grows, and can afford more expensive meals, their appetite for delicacies like shark soup, shark fin dim sum, etc. is going to increase. We may see 99% of sharks eliminated a lot sooner than my forecast of a decade or two.
Actually, shark fin has very little taste. The taste is mainly from the broth that the fin is served in. I would wager that if shark fin soup were not expensive, and not promoted as food for the rich, few people would bother. The attractiveness of shark fin soup is the result of many years of hype. And so many Chinese have fallen for this scam. I confess that I was also a victim.
Does anyone believe that if nothing is done to prevent continued finning for sharks that the sharks have a chance? And what happens to the entire balance of sea life in the ocean when one major component of that ocean, like sharks, is eliminated.
Shame on anyone who thinks that this does not have a big impact on the balance of sea life in our oceans. Shame on all the California politicians/lobbyists who are ignoring what is obviously bad for sea life, will be also very bad for mankind.
One rule of life I have tried to use to govern my decision making is this. Do not do anything where if things go bad, 10,000 “I am sorry” pleas will not be sufficient to explain or justify the bad decision or bad action.
If the world does not ingest another bowl of shark fin soup, who will be injured? Chinese restaurants that depend on this dish for drawing in customers will see an immediate dent on their bottom line. Too bad.
Restaurants will not disappear. Man will not stop eating out.
One more reality also needs to consider. Man will surely eliminate 99% of all sharks if there are no restrictions. At that point in time restaurants serving shark fin dishes will find another dish to prosper and survive. That much is certain.
Actually, I have a lot of confidence in restaurant owners. If shark fins were suddenly not available, restaurants depending on this delicacy will find an alternative. They are not helpless, many are very resourceful. The resourceful restaurant owners will thrive and survive. There will be a temporary problem if a few restaurants have the shark fin option and others don’t. Those restaurants will charge predatory prices for a rare delicacy.
Once we can ban the shark “finning,” restaurants depending on selling shark fin soup, will immediately seek an alternative. No single human being’s life will be impacted. Life will go on, and we will have other important issues to resolve.
Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that China and other Asian nations will be easily convinced to join a world-wide ban on “finning” for sharks. But this needs to start somewhere, and Thanks to the courageous work of Assemblymen Paul Fong, D-Cupertino, and Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, introduced AB376 in February, we as Californians and Americans are taking the first steps to stop the elimination of a species of sea life that is a very important component in the overall balance of nature in our oceans.
We should all support this. Do not allow the shark fin lobby to use the race issue to distort our decision making. Assemblyman Paul Fong is not trying to screw the Chinese, or Chinese restaurants – pardon my French. He is a thoughtful politician looking after our best, long term interests.
-Roger S. Dong is the self appointed chair, of the notional “Save the Sharks Foundation.”
Kudos to Assemblymembers Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) for putting animal welfare and environmental protection ahead of an archaic and brutal (and expensive) cultural practice. Simple “tradition” justifies nothing. (NOTE: San Francisco Assemblymember Tom Ammiano is a co-author of the bill. And Fiona Ma SHOULD be.)
Reportedly, we’re currently slaughtering an estimated 70-100 MILLION sharks a year, and for what? Soup and Superstition. (There’s a popular myth that shark fin soup is an aphrodisiac and cures cancer. Wrong on both counts. Not only that, the fins are high in mercury.) Shark fins are mostly gristle, chewy and tasteless. An Asian friend tells me you’d be better off eating Jell-O.
Not only does this commerce involve horrendous animal cruelty, it is unsustainable. With 90% of the world’s shark populations already destroyed, what we REALLY need is a worldwide ban on the killing of ALL sharks, for whatever reason, at least until their numbers have rebounded, which could take decades (many shark species are very slow breeders).
AB 376 is presently on the Assembly floor (80 members), and could be voted on any day now. Support emails and calls are needed:
EMAIL PATTERN FOR ALL: assemblymember.lastname@assembly.ca.gov
Check the “Government” pages of your telephone book for your representatives’ phone numbers, then call them accordingly. Assemblymember Fiona Ma and Senators Leland Yee and Mark Leno especially need to hear from their constituents.
Hawaii passed a ban on shark fins last year, and a similar bill is now on the Governor’s desk in Washington, another going through the process in Oregon. There’s also a growing movement in China to outlaw shark fins.
Save the sharks, save the oceans, save ourselves.
And when we’ve done that, it’s time to take a hard look at the Chinatown live animal food markets, where the problems are much the same: horrific animal cruelty, unstainability (all the market turtles are taken from the wild), environmental destruction, plus the added problem of public health concerns: all the market turtles and frogs are diseased and parasitized. Worse, of the frogs necropsied, 62% have tested positive for the chytrid fungus, cause of the extinctions of some 200 amphibian species around the world in recent years. Where’s the S.F. Dept. of Public Health, pray?
“No single human being” ..how true: many will be impacted. With no market, those involved in the finning will now be unemployed, and any investment in equipment/tools, forfeit.
That said, as Americans are not to fish for sharks, period, it would be ‘foreigners’ effected.
Fong still has a point: banning fins wouldn’t prevent sharks being slaughtered for any other body part. While not racist per se, this is specifically targeted at a culturally-unique dish. Might not even have any real impact at that: potentially it could just change what parts are harvested – shark spleen soup anyone?
Rewrite the law to prevent any and all products from sharks and you’ll have something that doesn’t smack of profiling. Could even be effective by denying any market for the shark slaughterers. Being though this is california, land of irrational laws like Happy Meal toy bans, doing nothing to address the issue but makes for the appearances of such…
Myeh, just be happy all the consumers will be getting toxic mercury buildup
Correction: stated Fong when was actually referring to Henry Cheung.
Thank you for your thoughtful piece about what we must do here in California. I hope that supporters of the ban will call their legislators (let’s start with the State Assembly first), and urge them to vote in favor of AB 376. If they don’t know who their Assemblymember is, they can use this link: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
We have to do the right thing, one step at a time, one state, one country…before it’s too late.
Thank you for writing this!
I’ve been so pee’d off with Senator Yee for using this noble call for conservation as a means to curry his votes when he runs for Mayor of SF.
It’s a shameful tactic if not downright disgraceful. I am channelling all my karmic strength in the hope that his tactic comes back to bite him in the mayoral elections.
aevan, I’m a Chinese immigrant who came to the U.S. when I was 16. I also understand the hard work it takes to run a business, because my family’s in business and we struggled for a long time. I think the shark fin ban is necessary and important.
If we continue to eat shark fin soup, in another few decades, the sharks will be gone, we’ll leave our children with a decimated ocean ecosystem, and there’ll be no more shark fin soup forever.
There are three aspects to this:
1. Illegal shark-fishing vs. legal shark-fishing
The shark fin bill is to target illegal shark fishing. Shark-fins are so much more valuable than any other part of the shark that it causes rampant illegal shark-finning, the large-scale indiscriminate killing of sharks even if endangered and certainly not within quota. More details at: http://scienceblogs.com/shiftingbaselines/2007/05/illegal_shark_fishing_in_galap.php
2. Shark fin vs. shark meat and other shark products
The vast majority, of the 73 million sharks each year, are killed just for their fins and the rest of the shark are discarded (not worth the fishermen’s effort or space on the boat). Shark products, e.g. shark meat, have such low demand that they don’t cause shark endangerment. More info at: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/the-great-shark-slaughter/Content?oid=2519696
‘”Fins are by far the most valuable part of the shark. Low prices or non-existent markets for shark meat discourage further retention.”
Indeed, shark meat exported from the United States goes for only $1 a pound — fifty times less than shark fin. …
Sharks meat, in other words, just isn’t worth it for most fishermen. In fact, Costco — contrary to Yee’s claim — stopped carrying shark meat years ago because of lack of demand, according to the chain’s US seafood buyer. …
Fins, by contrast, are highly valuable, and because they can be air-dried on the ship’s rigging and stored compactly, they’re essentially free money.’
3. Difficulty of enforcement
It’s impossible to end illegal shark-finning without banning shark fin: Illegal shark fins are difficult to distinguish from legal ones. It’s very difficult to ID shark fins. Alternative suggestions to cutting the demand are difficult and prohibitively expensive to enforce, and the state of California simply does not have the resources to do it. As you can imagine, people are ingenious at finding ways to get around rules to continue to profit off of shark fins. More about enforcement issue at: http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201102160900:
Perhaps the best analogy for the shark fin trade is the ivory trade. Our experience with ivory has shown that it’s impossible to enforce banning illegal shark-finning without banning shark fin. It was only after ivory was banned did the populations of elephants stabilized.
Sometimes we have to think long-term, not just short-term; consider our children and everybody else, not just oneself.
With a global market size of 2 billion people, do the sharks stand any chance of survival at all?