Friday, February 1, 2008

Killing sharks: How humane is humane?

The other day I was at a supermarket and saw a canned product containing shark fin. The company says they do not support the inhumane act of cutting off the shark's fin and throwing the poor shark back to the water (this is done so as there is low demand for the other parts of the shark). They will catch the shark whole just like a usual fish and make use of the other parts as well. Humane as they said, it still doesn't make sense to me at all.

To throw the shark back to the water, the shark will bleed to death slowly and get attacked by the other fishes. To fish the whole shark out of the water, the shark will drown slowly in the air and get attacked by knives. In either case, the shark dies, and in a similar way. If you were the shark and have a choice, what will you choose? If I am, neither. I will rather be happily swimming in the sea carefree.

There are people who feel bad that the shark has it's fin cut off and thrown back to the sea to die painfully and quit eating shark fin. But if the shark is fished out of the water and left to die gaspnig, how much better can that be? And if most fishes are killed this way, why do we only avoid eating sharks and continue to eat all kinds of fish?

A big fish is a life, a tiny fish is also a life. It may seem different to us, but to them it's the same. Eat less fish, or better yet, quit eating fish.



the vegetarian shark will thank you for that, because he knows



Here are a few other topics you may be interested in:
Mercury in fish and subfertility
Is fish a healthy food?
Does a vegetarian eat fish?
Cruelty of shark fin's soup

2 comments:

Fredrik said...

Besides, sharks are highly endangered and all shark fishing should be banned immediately. The shark is the most important of the apex predators. When it's gone, whole ecosystem will change in unpredictable ways. It's ironic that the fishing of a fringe food fish may lead to a total collapse of the "normal" food fish colonies. When will mankind learn???

Also, the commercial fishing of sharks usually is done by longlines. Several thousand hooks is mounted on fishing lines that extend for kilometers behind the boat. The hooks catch lots of by-catch or "junk fish". These are fancy words to hide the fact that thousands of albatrosses, dolphins, turtles and many beautiful big fish are caught by these hooks to die a painful death. Once the fishing lines are collected, the "junk" is conveniently disposed into the ocean.

Finally, environmental arguments and intelligent dolphins aside, sharks are beautiful and amazing creatures that need no justification to exist but for their own reasons. They are sentient beings being dragged out of their natural environment to die a violent death.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, there is no such thing as "humane" Shark products.

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