Will Tasteless Soup Mean Sharks’ Extinction- Palau Calls for International Moratorium on Finning

The Permanent Representative of Palau to the United Nations, Ambassador Stuart Beck, today called upon the international community to impose a Moratorium on Shark Finning. Shark finning is the practice of slicing off the shark’s fins while the shark is still alive and throwing the rest of its body back into the ocean where it can take days to die what must be an agonising death. Some sharks starve to death, others are slowly eaten by other fish, and some drown, because sharks need to keep moving to force water through their gills for oxygen. Shark fins are used as the principal ingredient of shark fin soup, an Asian “delicacy”. Demand for shark fin soup has rocketed in recent years due to the increased prosperity of China and other countries in the Far East. 

At the commencement of the Meeting of the States Parties to the Fish Stocks Agreement, Ambassador Beck said that the annual unsustainable taking of 73 million sharks a year, principally for their fins, is proof positive that the international system to conserve sharks has broken down.

Ambassador Beck said: “The slaughter of sharks for their fins to make soup is as needless and cruel as the killing of elephants for their tusks to make ornaments. People of conscience the world over shut down the ivory trade and saved the elephant from extinction. The island nations are sounding the alarm: only concerted outrage can save the world’s sharks from being slaughtered for the delectation of soup lovers”.

Shark fin soup, which can easily cost $100 a bowl, is often served at wedding celebrations so that the hosts can impress their guests with their affluence.  Shark fin itself is tasteless, it just provides a gelatinous bulk for the soup which is flavoured with chicken or other stock.  It is inconceivable that millions of sharks are being killed to make “gelatin”.  If some cannot muster compassion for the sharks’ suffering, they should consider that sharks are the ocean’s apex predator and as such they are one of the most important component of the ocean eco-system.  If they are “finned” into extinction, the repercussions for the world’s fisheries could be devastating.  Sharks, have to the best of our scientific knowledge, been swimming in the Earth’s oceans for 420 million years which would predate the dinosaurs.  What will happen to the ecosystem without them, is not known.  But what would it say about the human race, if we annihilated a species that has managed to survive many times longer than man has been on the planet. 

To coincide with the Fish Stocks Meeting, the Mission of Palau, the Micronesian Island nation, has organized a photographic exhibition entitled “Sharks Attacked: The Scandal of Shark-Finning” at the Lobby of the North Lawn Building of the United Nations. The exhibition will run from May 24-28. The Exhibition will be officially opened with remarks by Fabien Cousteau, the world renowned conservationist, at a Reception to be hosted by the Palau Delegation at the North Lawn Building from 6-8 p.m. on May 24th.

To learn about Palau, click here.  To learn more about the barbaric practice of shark fining watch the video below and visit the website: StopSharkFining.net.

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Posted by admin on May 25 2010. Filed under Featured Articles, Ocean Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.