Time to hold the shark fin soup-for good.
As a surfer in waters that are home to turtles, monk seals and, yes, sharks, whose favorite foods they are, I confess I get nervous at dusk, although the odds reveal no rational basis for my fear. Even "Soul Surfer" Bethany Hamilton, who at the age of 13 lost her arm to a 14-foot tiger shark, has said she doesn't fear another attack, and with good reason: One is a thousand times more likely to be killed by lightning ; in 2010, there were only 79 unprovoked shark attacks, six of them fatal, worldwide.l. Sharks, who have no natural taste for humans, are in far greater danger from us. A third of open ocean sharks are threatened with extinction and over 100 million are killed by the fishing industry every year, 73 million of these to provide fins for soup.
In this brutal practice, fishermen cut fins off living sharks and toss the mutilated creatures back into the sea, where they die slowly and in agony while boat holds are filled with amputated fins. Removing sharks, a top predator, from the habitat unbalances ocean ecosystems, as well. You'd think that, with the U.S. Shark Conservation Act signed into law by President Obama this January, making it illegal for any boat to land shark fins without the body attached, the atrocity would come to a halt. You would be underestimating the demand for shark fin soup. Where there is demand, the market will find a way to supply it.
Time to go beyond the boat. What's needed now to end this cruelty are bans on the trade itself. "While shark finning is illegal in the U.S., current federal laws don't prohibit the importing of fins from countries without such shark protections in place," explains Will Race, Oceana Pacific communications manager.
In a hopeful trend, bills banning trade and possession of shark fins passed in Hawaii last year l and the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam in early 2011. Similar bills have recently been introduced in Oregon, California and Washington. On April 5th, the Washington legislature passed a bill that now awaits signing by the governor. In California, one of the largest markets for shark fins outside of Asia,a single shark fin in San Francisco's Chinatown can sell for more than $500. The recently established Asian Pacific Ocean Harmony Alliance, a coalition of Asian and Pacific Island Americans, educators and city council members supports banning shark fin soup because it violates the cultural value of harmony with nature. Sharks, who eat at the top of the food chain, are also high in neurotoxic mercury and should not be eaten by pregnant women or young children, Environmental Defense Fund and others say.
Even a hardy band of shark attack survivors is supporting shark fin soup bans. It's time for all consumers to do our part by telling our representatives to end trade in shark fins and asking fishmongers and restaurants not to sell them.
What you can do:
Visit the San Francisco Aquarium of the Bay's exhibit on shark finning, opening the third week in April.
Take action with Oceana.
Choose sustainably harvested seafood that's low in toxins. Sharks are neither! Get the good and bad on fish and shellfish species with EDF's Seafood Selector tool.
Learn more about protecting our oceans as a global ecosystem with Pew Environment and the Blue Frontier Campaign.
Follow Mindy Pennybacker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/greenerpenny
Mark Tercek: Cheers to Oceans: Ted Danson's Role as Conservationist
Please contact your assemblymember and urge her/him to vote YES on AB 376. Look up your assemblymember by using this link: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
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.
One-third of the species of oceanic sharks are already endangered just from the last 20-30 years of eating shark fin soup. Thus if we don't act soon, these sharks will soon become extinct. These are the bigger sharks, the apex predators, who play an important role in the ocean ecosystem.
Decimating shark populations has many consequences, including collapsing our scallop fisheries and threatening crab populations. We don’t know all of the consequences yet. For a long time, people were killing bats because to them bats are useless, scary blood-suckers. Now we know that some can eat 3x their body weight in mosquitoes each night. Similarly we have to be careful with the ocean ecosystem. Phytoplankton produces half of the world’s supply of oxygen.
I was amazed to see these friendly reef sharks who let people pet them. Kids would love this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slsIfINSKNU
You'd think the FDA would demand that shark fin soup be labelled with a warning sign to inform prospective consumers that they're ingesting unhealthy amounts of toxins
The bill passed the Assembly Water, Parks & Wildlife Committee by a 13:0 vote, then the Assembly Appropriations Committee by a vote of 10:1. The bill will be heard on the Assembly floor (80 members) shortly after the Easter break. SUPPORT LETTERS ARE NEEDED NOW.
ALL CALIFORNIA STATE LEGISLATORS MAY BE WRITTEN C/O THE STATE CAPITOL, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814. (Note: Letters carry more weight than emails.)
EMAIL ADDRESS PATTERN FOR ALL: assemblymember.lastname@assembly.ca.gov. If in doubt as to who your Assemblymember is, look in the Government pages of your local phone book.
SAVE THE SHARKS! And boycott the restaurants which serve this brutal and unsustainable dish, and let the management know why.
Next: the live animal food markets, with very similar problems.
Cheers,
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland
Email - afa@mcn.org