I don't know what is wrong with my position. It is about fairness. Seal hunt, for example, has been the way of life for eons of time of the Eskimo before the white men arrived this continent. Why should the Eskimo's traditional way of life be ruined by them being targeted by the extremist elements of the educated western industrialized world, such as the animal rights folks or greenpeace? Just because seals are cute and have been some one's childhood toys? The Inuits' traditional seal hunt has been targeted, the bloody scenes twisted & horrified, and the mass media caught on the frenzy (and the same tactics are being used against shark hunt). Seal fur & products were banned in many parts of the world. The native Inuit people's way of life, their income source dried up. Their youth who are supposed to learn hunting from their elders and spending time on the wild wrestling with nature are losing direction in life, and in boredom turning to boosts, drugs, and they have the highest suicide rate among young people of the country. It is genocide, man. Even some of the original founder of Greenpeace regretted the harm done to the Inuit people.
Why the heck the West don't turn the cameras to their own slaughter houses, the fish markets or aboard the fishing boats in the West. They don't waste anything or not cruel enough? Look at the shrimp fleets. How many other species of fish have been accidentally killed by the shrimp trawlers or being met with cruel handling? Why shouldn't the West stop eating their shrimps? I get it. You can enjoy your shrimp salad but we cannot drink our soup (even when most Chinese don't have shark fin soup once per year as it is only a ceremonial dish while the West eat shrimp whole year round). Wastage? Don't just take the fin & dump the whole mercury laden shark body? Wait a minute. Those shrimp boats just dump tons of other little fishes overboard to get a bucket of shrimps. That is not wastage? Locally, don't we see chum roe taken while the whole ocean fresh & edible chum dumped here? Talking about wastage!!! Why then no western media frenzy over such wastage? Perhaps China should bring their filiming crews here to expose the hypocrisy.
Now the animal rights group, the eco scientists, the environmentali freaks (oh yes, the shark dive operators too) are stirring up the sentiment against the Chinese eating shark fin soup in urnest like they did seals. In shark, some of these groups find another hot button to push. When the issue is hotly contested, the donation/funding to these groups will pour in. In reality, they may never achieve the goals of shutting down shark hunting in the world, but many small fishing communities of the world are going to suffer with dwindling income with less places to sell to. Who know what will happen to those communities and their young people. These people don't have universities to go to. Fishing can be their way of life for life. The human cost of a complete ban can be enormous. Why is it that these folks can lose their income? They will do more damage to fish in the oceans? Oh well, so why don't we shut down the shrimp fleets, the mile-long high sea drift net fleets, or even salmon farms here while they have done so much damage to wild stocks in Europe and probably here already.
Let's be fair. The effort should be to pressure for regulating sharks harvest among countries, just like blue fin tuna & whales. Not a complete ban on shark fin or shark harvest. To do so is to me a direct assault to the Chinese cultural tradition. The Chinese nation and its people are no longer a push over like the old days. Better be a fair play to them, or else they may pull the plug on the West on their debts ....
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Topic: Sharkfin Soup (Read 86463 times)