Shark's Fin

There are very little things in the world that make less sense to me than shark finning. I am an environmentalist, but I am not an animal rights activist. Unlike many of my environmentalist friends (who likely want to throw things at me) I neither advocate for vegetarianism nor think that the mere act of killing and eating animals is cruel. I am not even 100% against hunting (although, like I've said before, I think if you want to hunt, you should do it with your hands and a dagger - make it a fair fight at least.)

Yet shark finning is ridiculous to me. Finning is basically the act of taking a live shark, cutting off its fins, and more often than not, throwing the shark back in the water to let it drown to death while spiraling down towards the bottom of the ocean. This is, any way you look at it... cruel. Disgustingly cruel. Yet, even for those who don't give a damn about the "feelings" of animals, I think we can all agree that killing an animal for less than 5% of its body mass and then throwing the rest of it away is a horribly inefficient and wasteful use of resources. Even people who like to eat fish - and shark is a type of fish - have to see the idiocy in this practice? For a world in which our seas are in real and serious danger of being exploited to a point where the vast majority of species are very likely facing extinction, the wholesale waste of a practice like shark-finning is mind-boggling.



While the fight against shark finning and against the most common use of it - shark fin soup - has been going on for a long time, there is finally some signs that we've made small breakthroughs in changing people's thoughts. Five years ago, I remember walking through the alleys of Sheung Wan in Hong Kong thinking to myself how sad it was that all of these dried goods stores stocked so many shark's fins. Now, as reported in the New York Times, demand is dropping: "Several vendors of dried seafood in the bustling Hong Kong neighborhood of Sheung Wan said last week that they now sold significantly less than they had a few years ago." Similarly, as mentioned in the article, people are starting to eschew shark's fin at banquets and events where it has been a prestige dish for generations. Just a few years ago, Hong Kong Disneyland put Shark's Fin Soup on their opening celebration banquet menu before a public campaign led by local environmental groups forced them to take it off.

Yet with the current catch of sharks estimated at over 100 million annually, is it too little too late? Hopefully we can still turn the tide and give sharks a fighting chance at survival. Horribly sad and depressing videos such as the one below of a still-live, de-finned, whale shark (the majestic shark that is the holy grail for most divers) that washed up on-shore to die, may help in changing public awareness. We can all do our part too. Boycott anything shark's fin, and start spreading the word today.