Scuba diver helps get shark fin soup off menu

A good example of what one person can do to start change. Hopefully scuba divers in Singapore can do the same and get active for our environment!

Scuba diver helps get shark fin soup off menu
2:00 a.m. January 10, 2009 Ed Zieralski, Union-Tribune
Staff Writer

Some local scuba divers and an executive chef combined this week to eliminate a controversial seafood item from a menu for a Chinese New Year celebration.

Scuba-diving enthusiast Carl Robbins noticed the menu in an advertising flyer from Barona Valley Ranch Resort & Casino.

Among the offerings was shark fin soup, the controversial Asian delicacy that relies on the fins of sharks, some of which are finned and released in a mutilated state back into the sea. The practice is being blamed for a decrease in shark populations around the world.

Outraged, Robbins sent e-mails to Barona and alerted fellow scuba divers and watermen. Robbins, citing Web sites and documentaries, detailed why it's inhumane to offer such a menu item. It's been estimated that every year tens of millions of sharks die a slow death because of finning. Robbins' e-mail to Dean Thomas, executive chef at Barona, explained his stance.

“The negative impact seen in our world's oceans through the ruthless slaughter of sharks for nothing more than their fins has been well-documented. It is a practice that has been long identified with organized crime not to mention the inhumanity towards the sharks as well as the enormous impact to our oceans and therefore to our world.”

Robbins' e-mail and others drew an immediate response from Thomas, who removed shark fin soup from the Barona Chinese New Year celebration menu.