Opinions on ban of shark fin - Page 48

On October 28 2011 09:09 JujuXG wrote:
shark fin= Americans cows,pigs and chickens

On a more serious note, a lot of Asian people are ignorance toward the whole issues . I think shark fin soup is popular because Asian people look toward eating shark fin soup as a sign of wealth and power(face).

On October 28 2011 09:53 Trell wrote:
I love Shark Fin soup >.< So I don't think a ban is necessary, as others have pointed out, maybe more strict laws on overhunting and using all parts of the shark.Shark Farms would be nice too.

On October 28 2011 09:43 G3CKO wrote:
Welcome to TL where it's perfectly fine to hate on China in every thread!!

On October 28 2011 11:20 SupLilSon wrote:


?? This has nothing to do with the country China. The ban occurred in Canada and happens to be on a Chinese dish. No one has even mentioned China until you did -.- Furthermore, no one is even condemning the soup or the culture, just the nature in which the ingredients are procured.

On October 28 2011 03:57 Kiarip wrote:

nope.

the only place I addressed my being insulted is in the very first line.



Well the genetic value of diversity doesn't seem to far exceed the value of the Chinese to have themselves some shark fin soup, who are you to try to force your values onto other people?

As for me not understanding the value of bio-diversity, I will admit, that I don't. I have been proven wrong in this topic regarding ecosystem related biology, and I have since done some more research. Still it doesn't change point of view regarding this situation, it's not absolutely obviousl that the extinction of sharks will cause some kind of catastrophic event, although it's possible.

It's just another risk, there's a ton of them, it's nto a matter of princiiple anymore it's simply a matter of cost/benefit analysis. The truth is that while demand for shark fins exists it will be very hard to avoid them getting killed, and the harder we make it to successfully acquire shark fins, the more expensive they're gonna ,get and the more profitable it will be for people to succesfully acquire them.

So with that in mind, knowing that it's just another risk, how much are we willing to pay/sacrifice in order to avoid sharks going extinct? I dunno, I haven't researched to the point that I could give any real estimate, and I don't know if such quantitative data even exists. However what we know historically about the majority of prohibitions is not only that they have been ridiculously expensive, and promoted illegal behavior amongst those who would have otherwise been law abiding citizens (thus diluting the moral power of the law,) so it is my believe (empowered by only little understanding of the biological aspect of this issue, but imo considerable understanding of issues regarding prohibitional policies,) that this will be expensive to successfully enforce.





Like I said, i agree that we need to worry about our future, however, I disagree that we need to worry about animals for the sake of worrying about animals. Animals don't worry about us, or about other animals... As a human society we first and foremost serve other humans.

I agree that we are dependent on the ecosystem, and the ecosystem is dependent on the species that exist in it, that's why like I said we need to do cost-benefit analysis of preventing extinction of particular species.

To turn it into an argument of morals and emotion liek you're doing is simply to argue a strawman.


I refuse to consider ethical reasons, because the ethical motivations of preserving animals are no where near being on the same level as ethical motivation of preserving humans. Being moral to other humans at least to some degree has to be in our DNA (and in DNA of other species to some extent with respect to members of their own species,) because otherwise we would have simply died out.

"ethics" with respect to animals are blurry, as we've been killing animals for thousands of years, for food, for tools, for ivory/teeth/horns, for fun... etc.



No we don't. We have a responsibility only to our own species. Species compete with each other for survival. This isn't evident anymore, because we're so good at manipulating our environment that the other species simply can not co-exist with us, but it doesn't make it any less true.





"flung the human part out of it." Sounds liek some mythology...

as for the rest of it, I agree we need to protect the ecosystem, because we need it to survive effectively, and yes we do have significant power in changing the ecosystem, so we need to be careful ourselves...

If you want to be an environmentalist and , hold fund-raisers, and invest your own money to go out into the rain forests to try to protect or study endangered creatures... It's your choice to do this, but you will find that while a lot of people will say that things like extinction of some random animal they'v never heard of is terrible, they will not be willing to spend money to protect them, because it's not as important to them as their own well-being, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Now, obviously if credible research comes out that the extinction of sharks will be the end of the world as we know it... Well then yeah, everyone's well-being is at stake, and it becomes fair to do something like tax the people a little extra to help enforce anti-shark-killing regulations and etc.

has nothing to do with ego.

On October 28 2011 11:32 Cuh wrote:
I used to live in Michigan and go over to Canada.. to drink underage (for America) and to eat shark fin soup.. damn do i miss that 30$ bowl of soup... now i got to go where, Japan?


edit: if we grow sharks in farms does that make it more acceptable? We are the top of the food chain and enjoy it... there will be a time when all species (including ours) becomes extinct.

On October 28 2011 12:17 Kupon3ss wrote:
http://na.oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/OCEANA_international_trade_shark_fins_english.pdf

You have to realize that this is just a "fuck you" to the local population as opposed to anything substantial, relevant, or impactful on shark population. Its just a bunch of petty officials doing something to make them feel like something more than a general waste of funds and time.

If there were any intentions to actually stop the rapid depletion of sharks worldwide, the first step should be sanctions against Spain and other major shark-overfishing nations, similar to those imposed upon Japanese whale fisherman a few years back

On October 28 2011 13:43 Leopoldshark wrote:
I have found out something very important. Take a look at this picture.



Sharks are a very important component of the Carrier. Due to the shrinking shark population, the Protoss have not been able to keep up their production of these great units. In Heart of the Swarm, they will be a mere memory. To all of you who think sharks shouldn't be protected, THANKS FOR KILLING THE CARRIER!

Sarcasm aside, I have already made most of the arguments I wanted to been made in this thread. We all know that sharks are important. The good news is that there in China there is a growing trend with the younger generations about the problems sharks face and the way in which these shark fins are harvested. With education, I believe the demand will decrease even without any regulation needed. We just need to make sure that the sharks will last until then. A ban might not be the best method. Regulation on the fishing practices instead of banning the consumption will probably be more effective (that way the people who enjoy it can have their shark and eat it too).

On October 28 2011 22:31 r_con wrote:
I have a general response, to both sides of the arguments. Neither side has provided any argument besides emotional response that sharks should not go extinct. There is no evidence that i know of showing that sharks going extinct will adversely affect my life.

[...]

And i haven't seen a single decent scientific argument in this thread. Everyone is saying that all the sharks dieing is bad, but i haven't seen or heard of a single real world example of where all of a species dieing greatly effected humanity overall. I know of the buffalo, it almost went to extinction.. We are still here, If the shark went extinct, I'm pretty sure the entire ecosystem would completely change because of that, but it would still be fine, as long as algae population and the sun isn't blotted out then they can still rebound in 20-200 years.

On October 27 2011 02:22 Malpraxis wrote:
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

On October 28 2011 22:31 r_con wrote:
I have a general response, to both sides of the arguments. Neither side has provided any argument besides emotional response that sharks should not go extinct. There is no evidence that i know of showing that sharks going extinct will adversely affect my life.

Now let me go on what i think is important to biology(and people can correct me, I'm not a biologist)

1. The amount of animals and plants in an environment is almost directly connected to the amount of energy in the environment as well as how close to the equator it is.
2. If something is removed from the environment, something else will take its niche, or their will just be over population and they will die off to acceptable levels due to not enough resources(food)

Those are my 2 big points, is that I think the ecosystem is a self correcting system and entire ecosystems will be changed if you remove some key animals and plants within them. Remember, change is fine, even if the buffalo went extinct, their ecosystems rebounded if they were affected at all. It may cause bad shit for a little bit, but some animal is gonna get in that environment and try to live there. Also the lower the thing is on totem poll, the greater it effects the overall ecosystem because they are most of the "energy" in the eco system, and the rest of the predators get their energy from it.

I mean, according to my interpretation and what i understand of biology, things going extinct is not a big deal. I mean this is basically just what i remember from highschool biology so of course it could be wrong.

And i haven't seen a single decent scientific argument in this thread. Everyone is saying that all the sharks dieing is bad, but i haven't seen or heard of a single real world example of where all of a species dieing greatly effected humanity overall. I know of the buffalo, it almost went to extinction.. We are still here, If the shark went extinct, I'm pretty sure the entire ecosystem would completely change because of that, but it would still be fine, as long as algae population and the sun isn't blotted out then they can still rebound in 20-200 years.

On October 28 2011 09:43 G3CKO wrote:
Welcome to TL where it's perfectly fine to hate on China in every thread!!

On October 28 2011 09:43 G3CKO wrote:
Welcome to TL where it's perfectly fine to hate on China in every thread!!