Shark slaughter a global catastrophe
The Daily Telegraph
July 21, 2010 12:00AM THEIR bodies rotting on the floor of a Japanese dock, hundreds of sharks have been slaughtered for just one thing – their fins.
Moving slowly up and down the rows of the dead, Japanese workers on a dock in the Japanese city of Kesen-numa hack off the fins and put them in buckets. From there, the grisly haul is sent by the tonne to cities such as Hong Kong and Shanghai on the Chinese mainland, where the “premium” meat is turned in to a delicacy, usually served as shark fin soup. Chinese will pay higher prices for the fins – but much of this haul will go to destinations across Japan, a nation already internationally condemned for its controversial taste for whale meat. The slaughter occurs on an industrial scale. At the same time, the world’s shark populations are decreasing at an increasingly faster rate. For example, the population of the scalloped hammerhead shark alone is down 98 per cent, making them critically endangered in the world’s oceans. But still the lucrative trade carries on in all its bloody horror. In the one photograph above alone, an estimated 75 tonnes of shark meat can be seen piled on the factory floor. …
