I want to say something about the shark finning… This is a very serious problem in this society. Because of the legislation publishing, I found that most American stopped to eat shark fin and shark fin nutrition soup. However, I still can see some Asian people and European people prefer to eat shark fin soup. I think anyone knows that eating shark fin should ban because the decreasing number of sharks and an inhumane way to kill sharks, but these words are just recognized in the orally, so how can we do it in real action?
Do you know that? Shark fin soup is a very popular meal on Chinese menus, and the dry shark fin is alway as precious gifts to others in Chinese traditional culture.
The Reasons of Shark Finning
I did a lot research on the Chinese Cuture about the shark fin soup. I think there are following two reasons that why Chinese people prefer to eat shark fin soup and import shark fin.
First reason is about respect, large ferocious fish represent right and power in Chinese traditional spirit. When people who can catch these kinds of fish, the emperors would give honor to them. Therefore, after several hundred, this traditional spirit still stay in Chinese people’s minds. That is one of the famous story of the Chinese traditional cuture.
In nowadays, as we all know, Chinese traditional culture is sharing all the happiness to friends and relatives and having dinner with them to celebrate some important festivals or ceremonies, so Chinese people make a reservation for dinners in some high scale restaurants. Then the party owners choose a combo for each of tables, and even if the meals are different in each of these tables, one thing would never change — shark fin soup. Based on the traditional culture, party owners offering guests shark fin soup represent the greatest respect to them.
In addition, the anther reason is about the nutrition. In people’s mind, shark fin contain various nutrition to help people complete the missing nutrient substance. Likewise, there is a Chinese famous word: “reciprocity”, it means people should give gifts to each other to maintain our relationship and show the friendly emotion. Therefore, based on this kind of culture, people use shark fin which contains the good meaning — “greatest respect” and “high nutrition” as the gifts to give to older generations and some higher position’s persons.
These reasons are total show that why Chinese people prefer shark fin. However, all these traditional spirt is completely no science-based, which means this is the time for Chinese people to change the incorrect culture and to know the modern scientific thought.
Some of friend want to know about the nutrient in the shark fin soup. Let me tell you the truth. These are several sentences about the scientist research, “the fin is purely cartilage, the same compound in human, cow and other vertebrates. Cartilage has no nutritional value.” and “developmental toxin and one that can cause permanent nerve and brain damage.” It is a very powerful support to the non-nutrient substance in shark fin. As the result, my dear friends, the truth is that shark fin does not have any nutrition and maybe bring some negative things to the body. If some people still insist that shark fin contains nutrition, I just can say, it is the truth that the soup contains nutrition, for that traditional Chinese medicine which the chefs put into the soup, such as ginsengs, goji, and Chinese angelica… These material make the soup contain a lot of nutrition, not the shark fin. Therefore, it can totally tell those people who think shark fin is healthy for the body, they walked into a wrong region totally.
The Significant Role of Shark in This Environment
As we can see, shark fin is no nutrition for people’s health, and even make people’s brain get hurt, so it is not a necessary thing for people’s physical health. However, shark fin is a very important thing for sharks to survive in the world, and sharks also play a significant role in this environment.
Let me give you some fact of the shark’s importance. According to the resources on the internet, sharks play the significant role in the ocean, but they are being hunted for the soup. Sharks population reduce 90 percentage during the last 10–30 years because the shark finning. Some scientists said that the hurting of sharks who are stand at the highest level of the ocean food chain, creates a destructive effect throughout the marine eco-system. However, some kinds of fish sustain life by eating plankton, so if there are not enough sharks to control the fish to eat plankton, oxygen will run out in the soon future. Likewise, if the number of plankton decreased, some fish who eat plankton will be decreased as well and then the beautiful blue ocean will become a dead sea. Additionally, there are abundant marine living resources in the sea, and these resources can offer people a lot of things to maintain the daily life. Meanwhile, the ocean is rich in water resources, and it possessed the burden of the global water circulation system, influence and even determines the global climate change. We should make the ocean food chain in a balancedway. As we can see, what the significance of sharks is, they are the protectors to help people stand up for the good environment. Therefore, while people save these great sharks, they are also saving themselves.
Inhumane Ways to take the Shark Fin
Second, people gain the shark fin by fairly inhumane ways. “The term “shark finning” specifically refers to the practice of removing the fins and discarding the carcass while still at sea.” They just take off the shark fin and then directly throw these sharks back into the ocean like a huge garbage! These poor bleeding sharks like a useless leaking bottles. Whether people can imagine the scene which show from the picture which I put on at the below. These sharks are all falling into the ocean and became a useless dying fish, no one care for them. Maybe these sharks are blooding and dying, when people enjoy in eating shark fin soup…
However, these animal are both best friend for our human being, they protecting the environment for people, but people ignored the offering from them, yet people kill them, earn money by selling them organ. What a inhuman trade they did! Additionally, some people said that if people do not shark finning, the number of sharks will increase in the future, and the balance of the ocean food chain also can not stable. The answer to this problem is “No” because the growing rate of sharks is very low, “sharks have a K-selection life history, which means that they tend to grow slowly, reach maturity at a larger size and a later age, and have low reproductive rates. These traits make them especially vulnerable to overfishing methods, such as shark finning”. Therefore, if there are no trading, people will not kill these sharks to earn money, so I think people should refuse to eat and buy shark fin, in this way, the market of shark finning will be disappeared in the future.
According to this problem of hurting shark fin, people must think about how can they stop to continue the feudal ideology. Even if eating shark is a traditional culture survival in some of the aspect, people must know that the feudal ideology and the custom which no scientific basis should be throw-outed from our mind.
My Solution
To deal with this problem in international society, I think there are two ways to solve this problem. First is about government. The government should use more serious punishment to punish these people who touch the business of selling shark fin. When government catches the criminals, they should report these people’s pictures on newspaper, social media, news. It can make these criminals lost respect from others. Each of countries government should enlarge the strike dynamics, perfect now available corporal punishment penalty. Second is individual’s moral sense. To judge out that whether this person possesses good public morals, we should know that this person’s eduction. Therefore, education always at the highest position in this world. However, education is a way to impart knowledge.
Obviously, in this case, I think we should increase the knowledge about sharks. By this way, people will know that the definition about why government ban hurting sharks. For example, people should put the knowledge about shark fin in the primary school and high school’s student textbook, and make new generations to know the serious situation of sharks fins. For the young generations, we should open the core courses in university and colleges.
For the old generations, the education way sounds likes a little difficult, we should hold the community lectures to pass on the knowledge. After several years, because the quick information spreading, each of people will know this knowledge. People are rational animals after we learn the knowledge about sharks’ position in the ocean and no nutrition, people will stop eating. Additionally, this is 21 century, everything is based on science, each of persons should following the modern scientific thought and natural sense. Animals are also the living things in this earth, people must get along with them, if we do not hurt them, they will also do not hurt us. Likewise, animals also can give a lot of positive things to humans.
To compare with the solution with others, I think my solution is better than them. Firstly, the government just publish the legislation to ban hurting shark fin, but no serious punishment to the criminals, so some of people will create the fluke mind. They think there is no serious punishment to them, so they can do it carefully, and keep away from government. Therefore, my solution has some serious punishment, it will make these people afraid of hurting sharks. Secondly, I suggest that universal education in society. It is better than just appeal people to stop eating shark fin, for the reason that some of people do not prefer to join in the club which appealing things and appealing is not a powerful and effective way to promote the serious social problem. The social problem is very important, so we must make each of people to pay attention. Thus, universal education of shark fin’s knowledge is more useful.
In any case, people must stop eating and trading shark fin because human being are hurting the great animal which protect the environment and maintain the concentration of oxygen for the whole world! If people cannot stop put shark finning on the menus, humans will also be included in the “menus” list for the bad environment on the earth! Thus, our life cannot without sharks, stoping shark finning is stoping to environmental damage.
References
How much do oceans add to world’s oxygen? (2015 , Jun 08). Retrieved from http://earthsky.org/ earth/how-much-do-oceans-add-to-worlds-oxygen
Isn’t shark fin soup healthy? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://seastewards.org/shark-finning/isnt-shark- fin-soup-healthy/
Shark fins trade: Undercover from “Crime Scene Wild.” (2009, January 24). [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.stopsharkfinning.net/videos/
Wild Aid. (2009, December 15). Yao Ming: Shark fin soup [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.stopsharkfinning.net/videos/
Shark finning. (n.d). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 13, 2016, from the US Wiki: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_finning#China
