Wednesday, August 8, 2012

23 Reasons Animal Lovers Should Boycott China - Reason #6: Chinese Soup Fuels Torture and Death of Sharks


Tens of millions of sharks are brutally tortured and killed every year all for a Chinese recipe: shark fin soup

[When I started this blog in 2008, my first post was about a dog who was chained inside a gallery and starved as part of an "artwork." Since then, animal welfare has remained a primary theme on 13.7 Billion Years. Over the years, I have learned about countless stories of animal cruelty here in the United States and across the world. But one country has shown the most blatant and widespread disregard for the lives and well-being of non-human animals: China. As Mahatma Gandhi wisely observed, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated." If China is to become a great nation, it has a lot of work to do. One way concerned people can help put pressure on China to change is to stop buying Chinese goods. More than 2.3 million people worldwide have signed the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare, and the number of animal lovers around the globe is much greater. Imagine if all of them stopped purchasing Chinese products. So, every weekday for the month of August, I'll give animal lovers one reason to boycott China—23 reasons in all. It will not be an easy month to digest all the horrific stories and cruel practices. But I have placed great value in a quote by the late philosopher Albert Schweitzer: "Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight." This month, I'll be doing that, and I hope you will too. -- Reynard Loki]

Every year, over 80 million sharks are killed for their fins, mostly to make shark fin soup, a Chinese recipe. Getting the main ingredient for this dish is a shocking, barbaric practice: A shark's fins are sliced off at sea and then the shark is thrown back in the water while it is still alive.

Without fins, the shark sinks to the bottom of the ocean, unable to move. There, it will either bleed to death, or be slowly eaten alive by other predators. Shark finning is illegal in U.S. waters, but the shark fin trade persists worldwide to supply this Chinese delicacy.

This horrific practice has helped to decimate shark species: Shark populations have decreased by around 95% since the 1970s. They are being slaughtered faster than they can reproduce.

According to StopSharkFinning.net:

"A survey in 2006 by Wild Aid and the Chinese Wildlife Association showed that 35% of participants had consumed shark fin soup in the previous year. This equates to an immense number of sharks being taken from the ocean. Sharks take anything from 7 to over 20 years to reach maturity, meaning that it takes populations a long time to recover; the current demand for their fins makes it impossible for populations to return to previous levels. Sharks are top predators - when they are removed from the ocean the entire eco-system suffers."


And it's not just the environment that suffers: Each individual shark experiences unbelievable pain and agony from the cruel practice of having its fins removed, followed by an excruciating death.

There's no other way to look at it: This activity—all for a soup—is inhumane.

ACTION ALERTS
  • Sign a Care2 petition asking the Chinese government to ban shark finning
  • Sign PETA's Pledge to Be Fur-Free
  • Sign a ForceChange petition to protect threatened populations of Asian musk deer
  • Sign a Care for Chinese Animals petition to ban dog and cat meat in China
  • Join Bill Clinton, Paul McCartney, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Bono, Ricky Gervais, Roger Moore, Susan Sarandon, Anjelica Huston, Jeremy Irons, Paula Abdul, Joan Jett, Annie Lennox, Elton John and thousands of others who have signed the TigerTime petition urging Chinese premier Wen Jiabao to call for an end to all tiger trade in China
  • Sign a Change.org petition to close China's bear bile farms
  • Sign the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare (UDAW)
  • Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter
23 REASONS ANIMAL LOVERS SHOULD BOYCOTT CHINA
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image: A dead shark with its fins removed—the "left-overs" from a bowl of soup. (Stop Shark Finning)
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