Quote:
Originally Posted by Trigger Man
I saw a documentary on shark finning, all those dead sharks just tossed out for the fins. Just wrong. I still don't understand why the whole shark has to be wasted just for the fins, if a shark is going to be killed atleast use the whole shark as food or something, I tried shark fin soup once and was not impressed. I know it symbolizes luxury in some cultures, but come on, there are many other ways to show off luxury that don't take needless killings.
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The majority of sharks fins have great value to only a select few countries. Really just one or two. This is the very sad part. They are being slaughtered all over the world in countries that would never otherwise kill sharks if there was not the demand from another part of the world.
In Costa Rica for example, the problem has gotten so bad that government has been "bought out" and turns they're heads to the problem and in return have roads and schools built by the "shark fin mafias". Illegal shark finning is now a bigger industry than cocaine worldwide. More money to be gained from it.
Even worse is many countries stance (or lack there of) on the issue including our own (Canada will still will not sign the treaty to protect sharks and maybe that makes sense since many other counties would see this as very hypocritical as they see our Salmon and Seal collecting as very inhumane at times...There is a reason Europe will not buy Canadian Salmon but thats another issue
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The reason the entire shark is left is because again in those select few countries, ONLY the fin has any value. Pressure needs to be put on the demand countries because so far trying to stop the finning is useless. On the planet in peril documentary a very successful poacher who travels all over hunting animals illegally said he would be out of business if it were not for ONE country. He said he can take any animal there and find demand.
Another sad part of all this is how many other fish are killed for no reason. They often use miles and miles of baited hooks that catch hundreds of different species of fish near the surface. Then go along in boats and look for sharks, hack the fins off and leave the rest of them along with all the other fish they have "caught". It was likened to if hunters were allowed to set miles and miles of bear traps in the forest to hunt bears but these bear traps caught all kinds of dear, moose, rabbits ect. which were all left to die on that spot because all they wanted was bear...obviously this would not be allowed to happen the there would be huge campaigns to stop it. Too often what happens in the ocean is out of sight and out of mind.