Animal rights group calls on Venetian to stop serving shark's fin
Tuesday, 17 March 2009, Macau Daily Times
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia-Pacific sent an urgent letter to the Venetian Macau Resort Hotel, urging the management to remove all items containing shark fin from its restaurants' menus immediately. According to the animal rights group, the petition was prompted by reports having received recently from its members in Macau that some of the Venetian's restaurants are serving shark fin dishes.
Overfishing by "sport" and commercial fishers seeking shark fins and cartilage has put shark populations in "peril."Sharks are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because they mature slowly, have long gestation periods and produce few young at a time.PETA also notes that shark fin has almost "no nutritional value" and can contain "high levels of toxic mercury."Despite shark fin’s traditional role in Chinese banquets, PETA says in the letter that public attitudes about shark fin are changing.
Chinese athlete and NBA basketball player Yao Ming declared that he would never eat shark fin again. Also in 2005, public pressure forced Hong Kong Disneyland and the University of Hong Kong to stop serving shark fin.
"No 'tradition' can justify cutting the fins off sharks and dumping their writhing bodies back into the sea to die in agony," PETA's Rebecca Chui said."We urge Mr McWhinnie to follow the lead of Disney and others around the world and remove all food items made with real shark fins from the menu immediately," she added.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Animal rights group calls on Venetian to stop serving shark's fin
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2 comments:
The ocean spans over 70% of our planet and plunges to depths over 36,000 feet. More than 3.5 billion people depend on the oceans for their primary food supply, but it is not an endless resource.
The ocean’s health is in danger and in dire need of our attention. Studies are surfacing at an alarming rate, and they all concur: Our water planet is in trouble. Overfishing, acidification, immense swirling garbage patches, poaching and multiple other insults are turning our once brimming oceans into barren waters.
We are at a tipping point. If we continue with our current practices, our children will look back at this generation and wonder why we did not take the steps required to prevent ocean deterioration. Without healthy oceans, our entire planet will become sick. We need to act now, or the oceans we know today will cease to exist tomorrow.
We would appreciate you spreading this news to members of your organization, while encouraging all members to vote for change.
Your 1 vote equals $1 Million to stop shark finning. Vote today!
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I saw a clip on t.v today that showed how sharks (of INDESCRIMINATE species) are caught on draglines and slaughtered for their fins, while still alive.
The rest of their body (also often still alive) is dumped back into the water. I am DISGUSTED.
I was raised in a family that fishes for recreation, and about once, maybe twice a year, we caught a sandshark whilst fishing for fish. My mom makes a killer pickled shark and on the rare occasions when we were unfortunate enough to hook a sandshark we used the whole shark and ate it all. The irony is, the fins were the only things we discarded! Even the entrails were given to our dogs as supplementary food. Any other sharks that we hooked accidentally (and that we knew we weren't going to eat) were taken off the line, hook removed, and released immediately.)
I never realised this indiscrimate WASTAGE was going on! When the announcer said that 530 million sharks a year lose their lives to the shark fin industry I couldn't believe it. That is such a big number that I can't even visualise it in my mind. 530 million????? I wonder if that number was related to human lives if people would start giving a shit?
Sharks are wonders of God's design and a VITAL component of the ecosystem. If they go, eventually - we go. It makes me sick. If you're gonna eat it, fine. Then take as much as you need, and ONLY that much, and dispatch the shark humanely. I often wonder why, as humans, we're at the top of the food chain. I know, we have reason, thought, constructive emotion, empathy etc. Sometimes I wonder if we as a species use any of it?
When last did a shark waltz into your livingroom and chop your arms off?
I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED BY THE TRADE IN SHARK FINS, THE WHOLESALE DAMAGE THAT THIS IS DOING TO SHARK POPULATIONS AROUND THE WORLD, AND BY THE TOTAL LACK OF COGNISCANCE THAT HUMANS HAVE FOR A PART OF THE NATURAL WORLD THAT IS ESSENTIAL TO OUR SURVIVAL.
If you've ever caught a shark (whatever species, by whatever means) and you look into it's eyes you see something there. It's not just glassy eyes looking back at you. It's a creature with a personality. It's YOU in a weird way. You looking back at yourself. Any decent person if they weren't going to eat said shark would release it immediately. That is what our so called 'humanity' demands, and that's the law in my family.
To the website authors - what can I DO to make people around me more aware of this wholesale carnage? Let me know, because the traffick of shark fins is WRONG. On every level.
My regard to you
JT
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