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The ecological disaster of shark finning goes far beyond the sharks themselves, and is rapidly becoming a major problem in all our oceans. Having learned quite a bit about this in my marine biology classes I can safely say that a worldwine ban on the current harvesting certainly is in place.
Ill give a quick review of the sharks role in the pyramid:
Sharks eat other fish, these other fish eat smaller fish at the reefs, the nurturing ground for most of our marine life. So when the sharks disappear, their pray freely roams the reefs, and thereby killing the offspring and other marine life at the reefs. Since reefs are very vulnerable habitats, the entire reefs gets destroyed ( not the actual corals, but the life ).
So all in all, this is not just about the sharks, or the chinese traditions. Wich I could not care less about, sorry China. This is about sustaining a healthy marine life, globally. And by killing off the top predators at the rate we are today, we are REALLY messing up this balance.
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what a joke, people arguing that its part of chinese culture and thus shouldn't be banned.
Slavery was part of American culture too, should it have not been banned? Pretty far stretch but I think you get the point.
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Who gives a shit? Has anyone here ever eaten shark fin? It is tasteless and bland, and the only reason people even eat it is because it is rare and they are trying to be "Adventurous" No big loss here I think.
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On October 27 2011 02:05 gosuMalicE wrote:
Who gives a shit? Has anyone here ever eaten shark fin? It is tasteless and bland, and the only reason people even eat it is because it is rare and they are trying to be "Adventurous" No big loss here I think.
Not specifically being adventurous per se, but by serving it at your kid's wedding you're saying how your family is big shit and everyone should be so impressed with how rich you are.
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that would be your preference. i love me some shark fin soup with vinegar
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On October 27 2011 02:00 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 01:50 fush wrote:On October 27 2011 01:48 Mohdoo wrote:On October 27 2011 01:44 paulinepain wrote:
Shark fins are good to eat, but looking at the damage it is causing, i would rather live without it, i can't really imagine how it is possible to have an "opinion" on that, it is evident that it should be banned as long we live in a society of profit and consumption and that we can't manage our resources in a sustainable way. Exactly. The people who are killing these sharks are not doing it in a sustainable way. If they were doing it such that they are not ruining the future of the species, similar to how chickens are not being forced into an endangered species, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But that's not the case. This is not sustainable at all. This is just people who are being greedy and thinking of short term gains over the long term future of the species. If its not possible to have shark farms, then tough shit. The well being of an entire species certainly outweighs these people who obviously have no regard for the future. They can find another way to get by. very myopic view of the whole topic. population numbers are not everything in ecology. not saying we're not overfishing sharks, but there are bigger fish in the pond that need to be tackled with respect to the ecological damage we do to get the food on our plates every night. the way they're selling this "news" item in toronto today is disgraceful. If they are over fishing, it needs to stop, plain and simple. They are over fishing, so it needs to stop. It is not a sufficient argument in any context that bigger problems make a lesser problem not worth solving. Can you elaborate on your interest in keeping shark fishing around? Why do you defend it?
had a post here:
On October 27 2011 01:58 fush wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 01:51 Bibdy wrote:On October 27 2011 01:47 fush wrote:On October 27 2011 01:44 jester- wrote:
Bah, sustainability is really the issue here.
The difference between a pig/cow/chicken slaughterhouse is those farmers raise their own stock to slaughter or purchase them from elsewhere. They don't keep taking and taking and taking without EVER putting anything back.
The majority of every other meat we eat comes from either sustainable, regulated industry or farm produced product. Fish farms, cow farms, pig farms, etc are very different than going out into the ocean and killing a gigantic portion of an already low population species and not replacing them OR letting them replace their numbers themselves (see: crab fishing, hunting for fur).
The comparisons in here to other sources of food are weak, very weak. sustainable in population perhaps, but these are domesticated animals that don't contribute to the ecosystem anyway. besides, taking things from the same ecosystem, you seriously believe the rate we're fishing now is sustainable? let's talk about sustainability in farms in terms of a ecological footprint. how much co2 emissions do you think comes from the farming of domestic animals at the scale of feeding a growing population? think feed, land for grazing, health, transport, killing, packaging, and more transport? you think that's sustainable? how is this any less of a problem than the ecological damage of killing sharks? this ban = waste of time So, your argument from the last two posts is basically the battle isn't worth taking the time to win, because it won't automatically win the war. Good argument. how's that my argument? i'm not against the ban at all, in fact i've said several times that i'm for it. but the bandwagoners who jump on saying this is a great victory for humanity in battling this unethical/inhumane killing of sharks are grossly misinformed and often contradictory in their argument. i point out examples by which our daily consumption of meat and fish violate these very principles that people are hating about shark fin harvesting. i'm arguing against the reasoning behind this law, and the way that it's being sold to the public in toronto - perhaps you missed that part. this is a small amount of good that amounts to nothing more than a vote grab by politicians - of course no one's stepping up to regulate the meat industry or overfishing, but hey, shark fins are a niche enough topic that can make them look good in a time when toronto politicians look nothing but fools.
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btw shark hunting is not banned, this only prohibits shark FIN hunting. that is why many are against this ban- it targets only a community because a fancy lawmaker saw a sad documentary. ban hunting sharks, or leave the shark fin community alone.
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On October 27 2011 01:44 jester- wrote:
Bah, sustainability is really the issue here.
The difference between a pig/cow/chicken slaughterhouse is those farmers raise their own stock to slaughter or purchase them from elsewhere. They don't keep taking and taking and taking without EVER putting anything back.
The majority of every other meat we eat comes from either sustainable, regulated industry or farm produced product. Fish farms, cow farms, pig farms, etc are very different than going out into the ocean and killing a gigantic portion of an already low population species and not replacing them OR letting them replace their numbers themselves (see: crab fishing, hunting for fur).
The comparisons in here to other sources of food are weak, very weak.
I agree with the first sentence, completely.
Without taking this thread too far off topic I want to add that there is nothing sustainable about cattle farms. All of these created animals (9billion chickens in USA alone) have to shit. Everybody poops. That shit also destroying our ecosystem.
More over, injecting animals with growth hormones, arsenic, and antibiotics has made the aforementioned shit borderline toxic.
If there is going to be an apocolypse, and I were a betting man, I would take H1N1 virus. And its not cause chickens are striking back, its because people like to play god. When you take 9billion chickens and give them antibodies and put them in a festering pit of waste, it creates mutating viruses.
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Pretty much a no-brainer; this practice is driving many species extinct which will eventually hurt humans.
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On October 27 2011 02:01 KevinBacon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 01:32 fush wrote:On October 27 2011 01:30 KevinBacon wrote:
I hate when ppl justify retarded things with the it's tradition or it's a cultural thing argument. If fins have no proper culinary or health purpose why keep eating them, because its tradition? it's a delicacy. just like how people pay through the roof for caviar or gourmet meals at top restaurants. why take a date out to an expensive dinner when you're just getting the same nutritional intake regardless? how in any way is this retarded? But this delicacy is actually quite harmfull to shark populations and it's trade is way too inhuman since as you know in many cases fisherman cut the fin and throw the shark back in the watter with absolutely no change of survival. Unlike shark fins most delicacys like caviar are actually quite tastefull not that i have tried shark fin before but i guess we can trust on Ramsay's word. Also caviar from endangered species is prohibited.
are you serious?
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This is what I love about North America: we let culture die a long time ago.
Culture being more important than animal welfare? What a joke.
You're upset you can't brutally kill sharks because your people have been eating shark fin soup for a long time... for reasons of culture...
Here's an idea, you might try and evolve out of ridiculous cultural norms. The western world does it exceedingly well, maybe China should try it.
Or you could continue your ignorance and brutally kill rare sharks for no other reason than your ancestors did it.
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On October 26 2011 18:43 T.O.P. wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 18:42 Divergence wrote:On October 26 2011 18:37 kazie wrote:
oh the hypocrisy. do these shark lovers know this is exactly what vegetarians think of the whole meat industry? ramsay must be faking disgust in that video cuz i doubt he's that stupid One step at a time bro. You can't call someone a hypocrite for being willing to stake a step towards a more sustainable and ethical world. This is pretty blatantly wasteful and by now quite exposed to the general public. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the meat industry the entire animal is utilized better than the dead sharks are. Nothing is wasted in nature. There's plenty of organisms that feed on the shark's body.
The problem is it isn't sustainable. If you want to start farming sharks and then from there harvest in a sustainable manner go for it. Remember the bison roaming the plains in Canada and America they didn't last long once the pilgrims came. It just wasn't sustainable. While the raising of chickens and beef has it's own host of problems dealing with hormones and other things, it is at least sustainable with the numbers of animals. (not the environment).
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On October 27 2011 02:12 jackalope1234 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 18:43 T.O.P. wrote:On October 26 2011 18:42 Divergence wrote:On October 26 2011 18:37 kazie wrote:
oh the hypocrisy. do these shark lovers know this is exactly what vegetarians think of the whole meat industry? ramsay must be faking disgust in that video cuz i doubt he's that stupid One step at a time bro. You can't call someone a hypocrite for being willing to stake a step towards a more sustainable and ethical world. This is pretty blatantly wasteful and by now quite exposed to the general public. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the meat industry the entire animal is utilized better than the dead sharks are. Nothing is wasted in nature. There's plenty of organisms that feed on the shark's body. The problem is it isn't sustainable. If you want to start farming sharks and then from there harvest in a sustainable manner go for it. Remember the bison roaming the plains in Canada and America they didn't last long once the pilgrims came. It just wasn't sustainable. While the raising of chickens and beef has it's own host of problems dealing with hormones and other things, it is at least sustainable with the numbers of animals. (not the environment).
so as long as we keep the numbers up we're good right? we're even?
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Fish are already extinct or near extinct in some part of the oceans. Trying to safe the ecosystems is a noble thing to do, but 15 years too late.
Soon from now all the oceans will be filled with nothing but jellyfish and crustaceans.
So if you like seafood better get used to eating jellyfish.
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On October 27 2011 02:11 fush wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 02:01 KevinBacon wrote:On October 27 2011 01:32 fush wrote:On October 27 2011 01:30 KevinBacon wrote:
I hate when ppl justify retarded things with the it's tradition or it's a cultural thing argument. If fins have no proper culinary or health purpose why keep eating them, because its tradition? it's a delicacy. just like how people pay through the roof for caviar or gourmet meals at top restaurants. why take a date out to an expensive dinner when you're just getting the same nutritional intake regardless? how in any way is this retarded? But this delicacy is actually quite harmfull to shark populations and it's trade is way too inhuman since as you know in many cases fisherman cut the fin and throw the shark back in the watter with absolutely no change of survival. Unlike shark fins most delicacys like caviar are actually quite tastefull not that i have tried shark fin before but i guess we can trust on Ramsay's word. Also caviar from endangered species is prohibited. are you serious?
I assume he is talking about caviar that is not from sturgeons. You can get assorted farmed caviers like from Atlantic Salmon or cod.
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On October 27 2011 02:04 Rice wrote:
what a joke, people arguing that its part of chinese culture and thus shouldn't be banned.
Slavery was part of American culture too, should it have not been banned? Pretty far stretch but I think you get the point.
It's true that culture is never a justification for unethical and unsustainable practices. But our consumerist culture tries to justify waste and unsustainable practices that have just as large or much larger impact than killing sharks. Why don't we all drive electric cars or use public transit? Or stop using paper unless it's absolutely necessary? Or stop watering lawns and sidewalks, golf courses, etc.
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On October 27 2011 02:14 reincremate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 02:04 Rice wrote:
what a joke, people arguing that its part of chinese culture and thus shouldn't be banned.
Slavery was part of American culture too, should it have not been banned? Pretty far stretch but I think you get the point. It's true that culture is never a justification for unethical and unsustainable practices. But our consumerist culture tries to justify waste and unsustainable practices that have just as large much larger impact than killing sharks. Why don't we all drive electric cars or use public transit? Or stop using paper unless it's absolutely necessary? Or stop watering lawns and sidewalks, golf courses, etc.
Well, probably because changing habits and letting go of acquired comforts can be painful in it's own right and is thus difficult to get rid off even if the vast majority has realized that the benefits outweigh the costs. But if we run the argument that there are also other issues to address every time a positive change comes around then we would never move in any direction...
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Hello, Team Liquid.
I have been lurking this site for some years now, and my god, my first post won't be about Starcraft. You see, I am a biology major and I've worked with sharks and rays personally. Urged by this thread, I thought I'd post some ecological/purely scientific insight about this very pressing issue. The thread seems to have turned into a discussion about ethical principles, and while these are important, you cannot ignore the natural history of the animals themselves. Brace yourselves for a wall of text.
You see, marine food chains and webs do not function like terrestrial ecosystems at all. On land, primary producers like plants make up the majority of available biomass, while each upper level decreases in biomass due to energy being lost in each organism's metabolism. In the sea, however, the primary producers are consumed so fast that the energy pyramid is inverted. Top predators (like sharks) make up for most biomass in the average marine ecosystem. This has several implications.
Top-down control of population size becomes much more important, since there are way more predator-prey relationships. The disappearance or decline of a shark species thus, has almost unpredictable, complex impacts on the ecosystem. For example populations of the species predated by sharks (which are many) would at first skyrocket, since they'll have no pressure. As these large populations consume all their limiting resources, they too would decline in time, or if their growth is too rapid, they could even become locally extinct (ecologists call this an oscillating event). This process then repeats itself in the lower links of the food chain. To make a long story short, this leads to a progressive loss of diversity in the seas and an explosion of jellyfish populations.
Fishing is not like other forms of food production. Animals aren't grown for the purpose of human consumption, but rather they are harvested from the environment. This is like me going to the forest, then killing and eating a grizzly bear. Sharks and rays also have another thing that makes them even more vulnerable. Most species are viviparous: They breed slowly, have a slow sexual maturation (30+ years in deep-sea species), and produce few young per litter. They cannot be sustainably harvested at the current rates we are doing it, and not without some kind of control.
So...sharks are important. Their decline could lead to a collapse of all fisheries in general. That said, the sharking industry is also the job of thousands of people who will lose their way of life if this business continues unchecked. So you see, the conservation of sharks is necessary to preserve them both as a species and as a resource. Breeding sharks in captivity is an unreal solution. What we need are temporary bans, intelligent use of the resource, using the WHOLE SHARK giving the guys some time to recuperate and fulfill their role in the ecosystem. Because right now, it is pretty much a massacre. Not only from finning, but also as bycatch from other fisheries (sharks and rays make up to 95% of the bycatch in shrimp trawling, at least in my country).
Finally, sharks are an old group. They've been around since before the dinosaurs, they have survived pretty much every mass extinction, and the pressure of every sea monster that has ever lived. Wouldn't it be just lame if we were their end?
Thank you.
Edit: Fixed some spelling/grammar errors
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On October 27 2011 01:58 fush wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 01:51 Bibdy wrote:On October 27 2011 01:47 fush wrote:On October 27 2011 01:44 jester- wrote:
Bah, sustainability is really the issue here.
The difference between a pig/cow/chicken slaughterhouse is those farmers raise their own stock to slaughter or purchase them from elsewhere. They don't keep taking and taking and taking without EVER putting anything back.
The majority of every other meat we eat comes from either sustainable, regulated industry or farm produced product. Fish farms, cow farms, pig farms, etc are very different than going out into the ocean and killing a gigantic portion of an already low population species and not replacing them OR letting them replace their numbers themselves (see: crab fishing, hunting for fur).
The comparisons in here to other sources of food are weak, very weak. sustainable in population perhaps, but these are domesticated animals that don't contribute to the ecosystem anyway. besides, taking things from the same ecosystem, you seriously believe the rate we're fishing now is sustainable? let's talk about sustainability in farms in terms of a ecological footprint. how much co2 emissions do you think comes from the farming of domestic animals at the scale of feeding a growing population? think feed, land for grazing, health, transport, killing, packaging, and more transport? you think that's sustainable? how is this any less of a problem than the ecological damage of killing sharks? this ban = waste of time So, your argument from the last two posts is basically the battle isn't worth taking the time to win, because it won't automatically win the war. Good argument. how's that my argument? i'm not against the ban at all, in fact i've said several times that i'm for it. but the bandwagoners who jump on saying this is a great victory for humanity in battling this unethical/inhumane killing of sharks are grossly misinformed and often contradictory in their argument. i point out examples by which our daily consumption of meat and fish violate these very principles that people are hating about shark fin harvesting. i'm arguing against the reasoning behind this law, and the way that it's being sold to the public in toronto - perhaps you missed that part. this is a small amount of good that amounts to nothing more than a vote grab by politicians - of course no one's stepping up to regulate the meat industry or overfishing, but hey, shark fins are a niche enough topic that can make them look good in a time when toronto politicians look nothing but fools.
Okay, so if a politician looks good by doing something, maybe even inflating the issue to make themselves look better from doing it than they should, there's even LESS reason to do it. Am I understanding your argument correctly now? Do you not realize how childish that is?
Would you be pouting if the guy that creates the cure for cancer made profit from it? Or are we only allowed to make profit from things like entertainment products?
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It's so hard for me to believe people like TOP are actually defending shark fin soup just because it is a chinese tradition. Please people, I'm pretty damn sure that chinese culture will survive the calamity of no shark fin soup just fine.
Edit: seems like entire shark is harvested in canada, which is much better imo. As a whole though, shark fin soup is just terrible.
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EPT
