FirstQuaker
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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam
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ORIGINAL: FirstQuaker
So what does the Province of Toronto think, they might save the sharks with this? For every kilo of shark fin for sale, there is an easy fiftyfold weight of shark meat in commercial circulation,
Here's the problem, quaker. The above statement is incorrect. The traditional method of collecting shark fins is 'finning'. Sharks are caught, the fins are cut off and the rest is dumped overboard to die and rot. When a 500# shark is caught, instead of 300# of meat and 15# of fins, they just keep the fins and waste the rest as the fins are so much more valuable than the rest of the carcass.
Sharks are what is known as apex predators. They are the top of the food chain in the area they live in and, as such, keep the sick and infirm culled of most other species. Remove the sharks from a reef environment (or deep sea or pelagic) and the overall health of the resident fish stocks will decrease.
This actually leads to a decrease in overall stocks and makes overfishing more likely.
But such things can be changed.
We see it done differently here then, as now they are buying the whole fish, was which I noted are often dead when caught (I myself have caught many over the years, when a big fish on your line suddenly feels like you are towing a tractor tire or are pulling a kelp patch, you have a "dead" shark.) If one gets into the net, it usually savages the other local captives before it dies. If you catch one commercially you get paid by the weight of it, just as any other fish. (Albeit not nearly as much as certain other ones.)
That fininng practice can and has been banned by the USAsians, and Canada can tighten our ban on the practice on the federal level too, relatively easily by emulating the US law (Boats with shark fins aboard must also have the apprepriate amount of shark carcass to match the fins they possess, the fins must remain on the fish until it is in port, and sale of just the fins to fish brokers is illegal.) If Toronto residents want to actually do something they need to take the matter to Ottawa, and have them act federally, the current US legislation is actually pretty good, if they need an idea of how to go about it, and are not satisfied with the Dominion's current efforts and ban on "shark finning."
The bad part is the line caught fish are still alive but with their spinal cord damaged, are going to suffocate if you release them, they just float their on the surface trying to swim, until they die in several minutes. Most the ones you accidentally catch commercially are dead, or soon will be.
As you noted they are the top of the food chain and thus they are loaded with stuff like mercury and every other thing and you would think the public would avoid eating them for this reason.
We normally don't eat them, though we can process the meat to be edible and I have had shark before. But for us, the skins and the spines (they have poisoned spikes adjacent to their fins) are the more valuable parts, and we catch enough accidentally to satisfy this modest demand, with the carcass being dried and thus being made edible fed to the dogs, or kept to make soup or stew with, when the fish are hiding.
My point was that modern fishing is gong to catch a certain large number of them, and substantial part of that catch cannot be released and survive. The fins are only a small part of this fish. And the fish is surprisingly fragile, considering its reputation.
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"But what hasn't changed is at large fishermen's markets, everyday, different parts of sharks are auctioned but only after whole sharks are brought in to the market. You can't just enter the market with fins alone," he said through a translator.
"I don't think it's fair to launch a full ban only because a small group of people harvest sharks inhumanely," said Leung. "Shouldn't we address the practice of shark-finning first, strengthen conservation efforts, increase penalties for illegally killing sharks, before we ban shark fins? "
"Unless it's nationwide legislation, I don't see how it can effectively end the illegal shark hunting," he said through a translator.
Of course there is no shortage of sharks in our waters here, and the marine mammals we have are the local seagoing predators. While actually fishing for them is not done here, (they are fished for on Canada's east coast) catching them if you set out to do it is not hard, I have caught the same shark several times in a half hour period while attempting to catch something else with a hand line, you would think one would tire of having hooks pulled out of it's jaw after the second time.
Here is a list of those that have banned the practice -
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American Samoa, Argentina , Australia (most States Territories), Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, European Union, India, Mexico, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Panama, Seychelles (foreign vessels only), South Africa (in national waters only), Spain, United States.
And the shark savers note they think the way to go about it is as I said -
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Only a small number of countries have banned finning and many more need to be encouraged to enact legislation. In some cases, only whole sharks may be landed, meaning the fins must be attached to the body. In other cases, the fins may be removed by the bodies for packing in the boat, but the vessel may not land shark fins that weigh more than 5 percent of the "dressed" weight of the sharks: that is, the weight of the carcass after the removal of the head and innards. Laws that require the fins to be landed still attached is better from a conservation standpoint because the 5% rule is easily manipulated.
Laws protecting sharks
But besides the Asians, the Europeans are actaully the worst sinners in the shark fin game. The EUrocrats say they will says they will tighten things up real soon now -EU promises tighter fishing laws to protect sharks
But since
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Spain is a leading exporter in the shark fin market, followed by France, Portugal and Britain.
I am certain this will be some while.
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Demonstration outside Toronto City Hall today against a... - 
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