Shark fin soup is a popular cuisine served usually at
special events, but recently the idea behind shark fin soup has changed. People
have now started to eat shark fin soup to show off their superiority and wealth
over everyone else.
In the Chinese culture they see the shark as an icon of
strength and health. Shark fins are also meant to have alleged properties that
can boost your sexual potency, prevent heart disease and lower cholesterol to
name a few. They believe that by eating shark fin soup the strength of the
shark will pass through the soup and into you, terribly sorry to burst your
bubble China but that’s a bull shit theory.
Shark fins add no extra flavour or nutritional value to the
dish; all it is there for is to add a gross stringy texture to the soup. The
main taste of the soup actually comes from the beef/chicken stock that they add
to it.
Now you may think that I just do not enjoy shark fin soup,
but my hatred for the soup goes much deeper. The hatred lies with the way that
they obtain the fins. You would think that in such a huge industry, they would
possibly have thought of a humane way to acquire the fins. This is however not
the case, in fact far from it.
In order to catch the sharks they spread a series of long
lines with thousands of baited hooks on them that in some cases are long enough
to stretch into outer space. After the lines have been there for a few hours
they reel them in to see what they have caught. They don’t bait the hooks specifically for different
animals so they are basically targeting the entire oceans marine life from
turtles to black marlin nothing is safe. Pulling up shark after shark cutting
their fins off and then tossing them back into the ocean still alive, leaving
them there to suffer in pain while they die. Doesn’t sound very humane now does
it?
The worst part about it is that shark fin soup has exploded
in popularity and it seems that people can’t get enough of it even though you are
essentially only eating beef stock soup. They kill an entire animal just for
its fins; they don’t even use the meat of the sharks. The increase in
popularity of the shark fin soup means a higher demand, so there is more
illegal fishing operations out there catching more and more sharks.
People think that sharks are dangerous and man-eaters but
they are the complete opposite. I have been side by side with many sharks in my
life as a diving instructor and they paid no attention to me. Go stand next to
a lion and see what will happen to you then, I think the lion will win that
battle every time. The fact of the matter is that more people die each year
from soda machines falling on them or getting struck by lightning than shark
attacks.
There are more than 38 million sharks getting killed each
year for an 8th of its body weight, its almost like someone coming
to your house, chopping off your arms and legs and then leaving you there to
bleed out. How can you be such a fan of a soup that it means having to kill a
four-meter shark for one bowel of soup!
The popularity of shark fining has increased so much that
even though it is illegal it is still the most popular and desired product you
can acquire on the black market. It is becoming so big they governments are
involved in the industry. Governments are actually stopping marine activists
coming to countries to do research and attempt to stop the shark fining. The
illegal market is so big that governments are having to get involved in the
market because the money that the illegal fisherman are offering for the governments
silence is a number that they cannot turn down.
We have to stop the demand for this soup to actually make a
difference, we as the consumers need to realize the bull shit that is shark fin
soup and put an end to it ourselves.
