Shark fin soup near ban in California

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
LA Times article on pending bill to ban shark fin soup in California. Similar legislation is pending in several other states. Hopefully this will be genuinely useful in helping shark conservation.

Shark fin soup one step closer to being banned - latimes.com

I was never a big fan of sharks until I saw the shark conservation exhibits at the Monterey Aquarium. Hopefully the oceans will not "jump the shark" and shark populations of at least some species can be conserved at sustainable numbers.
 
Great news! I've shown the excellent, award-winning, documentary "Sharkwater" to students at the high school that I teach at, and the film deals with aspects of the shark finning industry:

SHARKWATER

There are a lot of shark finning facts on this link:

Shark Education - Shark Finning Facts
 
All we need now is a national piece of legislation to protect sharks from being used like this. Around 75 million sharks every year are killed by such a practice. A comprehensive look in how the oceans are exploited is something that every nation needs to look at in order to save this magnificent ecosystem from total collapse.
 
Of course good news, but I don't know if it will make much difference unless it is banned in Japan.
 
The main problem (country) with regards to this soup is China, and the problem is growing. In China SFS is considered a delicacy and a food eaten at special occasions such as weddings and banquets etc,. The problem is growing out of hand now because the Chinese economy is developing very nicely and this growth in economy results in more people nowadays being able to afford to eat SFS on 'special' occasions, so the demand of it is actually rising in China.

The soup itself isn’t actually made up to taste of the sharks fin, the flavour is a broth and the fin is not what makes the taste of the dish, but the fin is what makes up the price, the exoticness and the 'luxury' of the dish for many Chinese people.

It is very much a culture/way of life to eat SFS in China (if you can afford it) as in certain areas of China it is also considered that animal products such as Rhino horn, Bear bile and Tiger penis (to name just a few without thinking) have special healing, life preserving and even libido increasing factors.

Another very negative point without going into great detail here is the fishing for the sharks itself. Often the sharks are caught in nets alive or dead, the fins are cut off the rest of the body disguarded. Not only sharks get caught in the nets, dolphins and turtles to name but a few species are by products of the demand for sharks fins that are drowned in these nets regularly.

Result on the ecosystem in removing so many top of the chain predators = very worrying to say the least.
 
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