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Shark Finning
Angela Yan
Orator of the Year
Winner
Sitting at a large round table in a noisy restaurant, I tasted my first
mouthful of shark fin soup. At first it looked strange, but when I
tasted it, it didn’t taste strange at all, it was surprisingly delicious!
What is shark fin soup you may ask? Well, it’s a thick soup made with
chicken and ham broth with shark fin and shredded chicken or crab
meat. When I was younger, I certainly thought all that flavour came
from the shark fin, but really, it doesn’t even contribute to the taste.
Shark fin is regarded a delicacy and a health tonic in Asia,
particularly China, and is traditionally consumed by the wealthy
minority of Chinese people who believe that it can cure most serious
illnesses. It sounds perfect with all its ‘benefits’, don’t you think? But
do we really know how it comes to our tables? Shark fin is extremely
expensive with a kilo of it selling for up to $650! This explains why
so many people have joined this multi-billion dollar industry. Firstly,
the sharks are pulled onto a boat and, still alive, all of their fins are
sliced off with a hot knife before the sharks are thrown back into the
water. With no fins left and losing blood, the sharks can no longer
swim and sink to the bottom of the ocean. They then endure a slow,
painful death. This is the common and brutal routine of shark
finning in 145 countries, particularly Indonesia, India, Spain, Taiwan,
Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan, United States, Japan andMalaysia. The
fins are then traded, harvested, dried and sold to restaurants to be
made into soup. Approximately 73 million sharks are slaughtered
annually by humans for their fins. On the other hand, approximately
6 people are killed by sharks each year. Sharks are killed for their
precious fins to be served to us in gleaming bowls of soup. Sharks are
killed for soup?
For medicinal benefits and display of wealth, we are sacrificing
the ‘wolves’ and the ‘bears’ of the sea that help to maintain the
marine ecosystem. When you think of sharks, you may think of
movies such as, Jaws, where sharks are portrayed as killing machines.
In fact, when they do harm someone, they are just curious and do
not have this intention. The biggest predator is mankind. Sharks
help keep the fish population healthy by only preying on the old, sick,
or weak fish to prevent disease. Sharks are so special that scientists
say that they are the ‘keystone’ species and without them, the whole
food web will collapse and become unbalanced. A loss of sharks
leads to not just a devastation in the marine environment, but it can
also lead to the loss of certain foods we need for
our
survival.
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