Finning

Another recent episode of this TV series was about shark finning.

The story is simple and should be familiar to many of us. In short, shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins and the discarding of the rest of the fish; it takes place at sea so the fishers only have to transport the fins – and therefore more sharks could be killed.

I must say I am no fan of shark fin soup and am eager to preserve all resources on our planet. Nonetheless, I am always skeptical with those environment protection groups. (The analogy is one could deeply believe in the god but is paranoid with the church, or we can love our country but have a different feeling with the party.)

Just a few facts I gather from the Internet:

• Around 100 millions of sharks are caught each year, one-third by the method of shark finning, while one-half are actually bycatch (that is, the unintentional capture of species by other fisheries).
• Sharks are common seafood in many countries, notably Japan, Australia (as fish-and-chips), India (deep-fried as sora puttu), Iceland (fermented as hákarl), and many other European countries (as fish fillet).
• A number of American States (for example, Hawaii, California, and Washington) ban the possession, sale and distribution of shark fins. Whole sharks could still be legally fished, but the fins could no longer be sold – and are therefore discarded.

No, I’m not saying we should allow shark finning – it is cruelty, as simple as that. From the point of view of environment protection, however, I am sure there are more important areas to focus our attention.