Save The Sharks! No Shark Fin Soup!

Tuesday, 1st May, 2012 ~ My new war cry is "Save The Sharks!"
Attended the SharkSavers event held outside CineLeisure. This event is to encourage people not to eat or serve shark fin soup. At the event, I took a pledge to forgo shark fin soup although for a number of years, I'd stopped eating this particular dish.

Sharks Under Attack!


The pamphlet I received, the video I'd watched or the talks I'd heard at the event only mentioned 'Asians'. I understand that the event organizers had to be sensitive & politically correct.
BUT! This is my blog, my say & I say, cut the bullcrap! To the hell with political correctness & all those nonsense. Lets be honest & frank about this issue.
I live in a multi-racial society & besides the Chinese, never had I seen/heard other Asians having a love for shark fin soup. It is ONLY THE CHINESE who consider shark fin soup a delicacy & more importantly, a prestigious dish, a 'must have' at wedding or business banquets. It's a dish to show off the status of the host due to the reason that shark fin soup began as a dish served only to Chinese emperors & court guests. Today, the Chinese dynasties era was long gone, but this tradition was carried on by the rich & famous, hence expanding the mass killing of sharks just for their fins to cater for the increasing demand as more & more people are able to afford this prestigious dish. The Chinese is the most populous people in the world & whether they are in China or anywhere in the world, they want their prestige shark fin soup! And this is precisely the reason behind the massive decline of sharks population. With 73 millions sharks killed each years just for their fins, it's no wonder one third of the world's shark species face extinction.

Question: Why should we save the sharks?
Answer: Same as why we should not cut down all the trees in this world. We humans, do not know enough yet, of the world's ecosystem to be able to remove 1 organism out of sudden & expect nothing will change. We could not even suddenly eliminate a pest, say... all mosquitoes & hope nothing will happened. SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN! Animals which depend on mosquitoes as food will die off & when the prey die out, their predators will followed very soon. Plants depending on mosquitoes to pollinate will die off. Food chain will be severely disrupted & ecosystem will collapse very fast.
Most natural extinction took a long period of time. Time enough for some other organism to replaced the niche of the extinct. Time enough to create a balance. Extinction caused by modern human, with help of our technologies, happened too fast. Top predators, like sharks, are usually slow producing. We are killing them too fast. Too fast for species to recovered or a new species to take over the role/niche. Too fast for the ecosystem to recover & in the long run, climate might even be effected. THAT will NOT be favorable for the human race... hand in hand, following the Dodos, to hell we all goes!
Therefore, by saving the sharks, we save ourselves. SAY 'NO' TO SHARK FIN SOUP NOW!

Saying No To Shark Fin Soup!


Reasons for not eating shark fin soup other than the reasons stated above are:
Beside the cruelty factor of chopping off the fins & throwing back the still alive sharks to slowly let them drown, there's the health factor ~ harmful mercury in sharks. Tiny organisms took in mercury with their food. Little fish eats them & medium fish eats little fish. In turn, big fish eat medium fish & gets eaten by large fish. Large fish will be eaten by huge fish, the top predator, which includes sharks. What the shark ate includes ALL those little to large fish intake of mercury! And you eating shark fin soup in a fancy restaurant are EATING UP ALL THOSE AMOUNT OF POISONOUS MERCURY!
The joke is on you, eaters of shark fin soup! LOL! =P

Those long dead Chinese emperor's chefs played pranks on their emperor. Not exactly pranks, but if you're the emperor's chef having to come up with all sort of exotic dishes just to please him & his ego, showing off to his guest, you better crack your head to come up with something, anything... before your head is on the chopping board along with your whole family too! Do not underestimate the stupidity or desperation of someone in dire situation! So, with all sort of nonsense & lying like crazy to save your skin, you produced - bear paws/bile(yikes!), tiger penis(eeeek!), bird nest soup(saliva!) & shark fin soup... UTTER NONSENSE FOOD OF NO HEALTH, MEDICAL OR NUTRITION VALUE! By doing those silly food, those ancient chefs got to live another day longer & they have no choice. But you have a freedom of choice! Shark fin by itself have no health, medical, nutrition value & has no taste. Cook or order shark fin soup with all the ingredients, but leave out the shark fin & tell me if it taste any different? There is NO DIFFERENCE because shark fin has NO TASTE! The taste of shark fin soup comes NOT FROM THE FINS, but from the other ingredients like, crab meat, the soup stock(which is usually chicken) & the pepper powder & the vinegar you added! Replacing the shark fin with mushrooms, clams or abalones might even gives you a better tasting & more nutrition dish. So, why eat shark fin? Remember the mercury? Status, you say & you don't care for your health! You want status? Fine! There are more expensive ingredients out there to replace shark fin or you can always add gold leaves to the soup. That will raise your status to heavenly level, literally! =P

We can all do our part in saving the sharks & preserving a legacy for the future generation. Stop the demand for shark fin soup & the slaughter will stop as there won't be a profit in it. You can make a difference on this critical issue. It's just a small sacrifice to pay in the face of a larger benefit.

To learn more or to take a pledge, visit:
www.sharksavers.org/sharkfinsoup

Spread the awareness!

STOP EATING SHARK FIN SOUP!


*Note: As stated, I'd stop eating shark fin soup for a number of years already. This was due to my guy, my soulmate who had convinced me with many of the points made above. He had forgo shark fin soup a long time ago, long before there is any movement to save the sharks Therefore, this entry is by him as much as it's by me.