To Stop eating shark fin soup and like products.
To Stop eating shark fin soup and like products.
1. Our most ancient species are endangered.
Sharks have existed since before the dinosaurs and pre-dates humans by hundreds of millions of years. Once I am of natural selection. Shark is extremely vulnerable because they take up to 20 years to reach sexual maturity and produce few young. The current demand for fins makes it impossible to restore populations to previous levels.
2. The soup isn’t that good anyway.
No one is asking people to stop eating delicious soups, and shark fin soup is certainly not one of them. Shark fins are tasteless – fins are full of cartilage, which simply serves as a thickening agent.
The soup has been served for centuries by Chinese at special occasions such as weddings so the hosts can impress their friends with excess wealth, since it can cost up to $100 per bowl. For the most part, the limited number of wealthy Chinese meant that the practice was sustainable, but the rapid growth in the Chinese economy since 1985 is directly correlated with the recent sharp decrease in shark populations.
3. Changing shark populations destabilizes marine ecosystems.
Changes in shark populations alter the ecological dynamics within the entire ocean because sharks are apex predators and play a major role as ecological stabilizers.
The domino effect: decimated Blacktip and Tiger Shark populations along the east coast of the US led to decreased shellfish populations, which led to decreased water quality since shellfish filter water. Another domino effect: fewer sharks increase octopus populations, which decrease lobster populations. At this rate, the oceanic ecosystem that has evolved over millions and millions of years would collapse.