A Message to China: Stop Eating Shark Fin Soup! 鱼翅汤背后的成本：鲨鱼可能消失
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 09:19PM For some years now, ocean scientists and many other concerned citizens around the world have been aware of the danger that shark finning is bringing to the world. Sharks are being consumed by the millions, just for their fins. After being brutally definned, their bodies are tossed back into the ocean to die. This is going on in support of a multi-billion dollar industry surrounding the purported benefit of shark fins for human health—a completely unsubstantiated belief. China is especially guilty of contributing to the extinction of sharks worldwide. Here in China, shark fin soup is considered a delicacy, and people pay a premium to consume it.
While many countries are waking up to this disaster, most people here in China are completely in the dark as to what the mass killing of sharks is doing to the ecology of the oceans. Many fancy restaurants in Shanghai and in other cities serve shark fin soup and some restaurants (such as Yu Xin on Weihai Road, where I ate last Sunday) have prominent displays of shark fin cartilege in glass cases. Shark fin soup is especially popular for high-status events such as weddings or official banquets. As far as I know, the Chinese government turns a blind eye to the damage that this industry is doing to the world's oceans.
Without these ancient predators, who mainly consume small fish (despite their image, sharks very rarely attack people and only 5 people die of shark attacks per year) roaming the oceans, the ecological balance is thrown off. Statistics suggest that at least 100 million sharks are killed per year so that people in China (and elsewhere) can eat their shark fin soup.
This is a brutal trade that is destroying the shark population of the world. You can help end it by refusing to eat shark fin soup and by telling restaurants in China not to serve it. Let us hope that in time, China wakes up to the monumentality of this crisis, before all the world’s sharks have been killed.
If you want to learn more about the shark finning industry, I highly recommend the film Shark Water. It’s a beautiful film and a gripping story of the struggle of a few brave people to help stop shark fishing in the Galapagos and Costa Rica—two of the oceans’ greatest preservation areas for sharks, including the hammerhead shark.
Here are some sources for learning more about this issue.
http://www.seashepherd.org/longline/longline_shark_finning.html
http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/issues_facing_wildlife/shark_finning/dying_for_a_bowl_of_soup.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/05/international/americas/05sharks.html
http://www.wildaidchina.org/Article/WildAidInTheNews/18.htm
China, Environment, food in Chinese Culture and Society 
Reader Comments (10)
heres the thing.
to chinese mainlanders, shark fin soup is as much a part of a wedding ceremony as cake is for americans/westerners.
of course the big difference is, cake is sustainable.
you can grow the stuff needed in your own back yard if you absolutely had to!
Shark fin soup ? Fishers cut the fins off of live sharks, then toss the still living shark into the ocean to slowly bleed to death - in that brutal and wasteful process, you gain 2 fins...enough to make soup for perhaps 25 people..so for a larger wedding you must kill 4-6 sharks.
And also, this is china we are talking about. the nation of 1.3 billion people.
that 1.3 billion number is very major when you consider how slow sharks breed, and how in demand thier fins are by that large ammount of people...its enormous pressure on sharks, when they take 5 years to reach sexual maturity. its no wonder they are dying out so quickly [10 years ago there was 10x as many sharks in the world].
If you add it up, its easy to see why the pracitce of eating shark fin is ridiculous on such a large scale..it is not sustainable at all. So in the short term if not stopped, it will leave the oceans sharkless and its ecology in chaos...all that for a bowl of soup - which btw - is tasteless [shark meat has no taste] - and its medicinal properties is based on superstition.
Judging from comments like "China is ignorant", "1.3 billion number is very major when you consider how slow sharks breed, and how in demand thier fins are by that large ammount of people..." (Do you people truly believe every single person in China had shark-fins before? Do you folks have a clue how expensive these things are?) I must say the Sinophobic attitudes of many Westerners has to do with this international protest against shark-finning to a certain degree.
north america and europe should cut trade with china>china buys very few manufactured goods from the west- so the west looses jobs while china ruins the planet.
once they stop making money off of us, their communist party will go the way of libya's gaddafy
This 'campaign' is much to do about nothing.
With the rise of China, we better eat all the shark fin soup we can now.
Assuming only top 1% of China can afford it, this is more than 10 million people.
In a few years, there may not be any sharks left unless you can raise them in farms.
Good luck trying to convince the upper class in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong to stop eating shark fin lol : )
That may cause WW3, whereas
I for one even brought a geiger counter to make sure the shark fin does not come from Japan, and even have a chelating diet for the mercury.
Though it is really strange why all the caring concern about PCB mercury etc, because these materials do not accumulate in the cartilage of sharks.
However, do beware not to eat too much blue fin tuna - the nice fatty tuna belly parts do accumulate the bad stuff.