Let's ban fishing all together. I have seen many female chums being discarded with tummy cut open by some barbaric fishermen who are not Asians, and yes the fish still wriggling with pain and left to die. PETA should tape it and broadcast all over the world and have our salmon fishing banned. Then there will be peace. 
I agree fining a shark and let it die slow is cruel. But it is a cruelty plot overplayed for propaganda. Is it more ok for our salmon, even wild steelhead or wild coho to die slowly, wriggling for hours in a gill net, trapped and suffocating for hours with their gills not being able to breathe and suffer the same slow death? That is also a horrific way of harvest which is cruel. How about the slow death suffered by being crushed in a net trolled at high speed? Why is that ok to you guys who point the finger to those subsistence fishermen. Where is the camera for the cruelty done to fish to die this way? Should we ban salmon harvest because of this cruelty to the fish? Why not? Because it will take away the favourite fish of North American and European taste. Yup. I can justify my taste but your taste is all weir and uncivilized and come from cruel unedcuated people. My way is ok and beyond reproach, but your way is barbaric. Isn't there something wrong? Typical western arrogance to me.
The solution is not a total ban, but regulation & quota imposed by shark harvesting countries. Sharks are way more numerous than blue fin tuna or sturgeon. You can see fishing shows or nature shows with lots of sharks. But you never see a blue fin tuna except in the current Wicked Tuna shows. If shark harvest or sharp fin is banned instead of being regulated, then ban the rest. If not, then why? Dont' be a hypocrite now.
There are a few large differences between killing salmon for roe and fining sharks.
1. Sharks can live up to a 100 years, the salmon are returning to die
2. Most of these salmon are put there though hatchery programs. One of the largest objections to fining is the unsustainability of it, otherwise it wouldn't now be banned at official banquets in China.
3. There is no comparison to "slit and releasing" a salmon to fining a shark. The salmon is not going to live a tenth as long as the shark, and chances are any "roe" fishermen that would do such a thing are going to bonk and bleed their fish before taking the roe. If they do release it back into the river instead of taking it home at least the nutrients are being returned to the river, which is the point of a lot of the hatchery programs, like the white spring stockings done to most lower mainland rivers.
4. We also have regulations in place to punish anyone wasting their salmon catch, or being cruel to animals, so if you see someone doing it- report them if you feel it's so hypocritical. We have laws to deal with this behavior, and that's the biggest objection to fining. I'm sure if salmon fishing was as barbaric as you describe there would be a group out there trying to stop it.
The point of banning the soup is that there are many unregulated countries fining sharks, and one of the ways to put pressure on them to stop is by banning it's sale and removing the market. Same thing that was done with rhino horn, elephant tusks, black bear gall bladders etc etc. I have no problem with someone killing a bear, so long as they use it, not just to harvest an organ for a "delicacy" or some homeopathic form of Viagra.
We're a predatory species at the top of the food chain, if someone wants to kill an animal, I have no objection so long as it's done in a sustainable way in harmony with the environment, that properly uses the animal. I don't agree with whaling either, but I understand the native historical and cultural significance to hunting them. I would hope that as society evolves we look at some of these cultural practices and refine our behaviours, and realize we don't need to hunt whales to honor our ancestors, any more than we need to impale someone as a form of capital punishment, or fin sharks to add a chewy crunchy element to soup.
Fining should be banned, but if you want to fish sharks, fill your boots, so long as you at least use the entire animal, and kill it humanely. It's not the killing of sharks that's the issue, it's killing them in an unsustainable practice, inhumanely that's the problem. Fining is the result of the the low economic value of the rest of the fish. Unfortunately since some people/countries can't play nice, we have to resort to bans to force change that would not happen otherwise.
It isn't western arrogance or sinophobia, it's an evolved sense of ethics and it's not restricted to western society.
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Topic: Sharkfin Soup (Read 86452 times)