Ocean Sentry
Each year, the fins of 73 million sharks are sold in markets in Hong Kong with most being shipped to China for soup – but shark populations can”t sustain the rate at which they are being killed and are being fished to extinction.
American charity Shark Savers and WildAid are putting up billboards in Shanghai and Beijing that tell consumers of shark fin soup about the damage finning is having on shark populations.
Michael Skoletsky of Shark Savers said: ‘A lot can be done on the marine protection side of shark conservation, but nothing can be solved if we don’t work on the demand and consumption side – which is shark fin soup.
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‘We might assume that people who eat shark fin soup don’t care, but in reality they don’t know the issues – for example contamination issues. Shark is high in heavy metals, including mercury, which is toxic. And most people don’t know that finning is wiping out sharks and that this affects the balance of ocean ecosystems. Some don’t even know that shark is in the soup because in Chinese it translates as fish fin soup.’… Read Full Article by Jo Mattock
