Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comThe $48-a-plate shark fin has been a favorite dish to celebrate 80th birthdays and fete out of town VIPs since Vienna Hou's Chinese restaurant opened 25 years ago.
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Today shark fin, tomorrow beef. Who knows how far this will go?
They might ban eating human meat!!! that would suck, there are so many, and so few sharks left.
Less sharks, more fish ... more sharks, less fish ... diving and snorkelling businesses will benefit most with less sharks
I dive to see sharks.
I would consider farm raised beef and wild caught shark to be very different.
Politicians passing laws to protect sharks? Sure, they're related.
We already have laws banning the consumption of whale and things like that. And oh look, beef is still legal.
Cattle aren't endangered, like some species of sharks are thought to be. Why would we ban eating beef?
Richard..."Politicians passing laws to protect sharks?"...yes, professional courtesy.
GEEZ........(Wonder what Kanye thinks about this!!! LMAO!!!!)
I've been so lonely girl, I've been so sad and down
Couldn't understand why haters joked around
I wanted to be free with other creatures like me
And now I got my wish, cause i know that I'm a gay fish (gay fish)
Now I know who has been righting the lyrics for rappers!!!!
As always the politicians screw people over! Those that do not work tell others who do work how to run their jobs. We need less laws not more.
idiot...
I am usually anti-regulation, but this law is probably necessary. I've been sport fishing for sharks for many years and have noticed a decline in the number of hook-ups. Commercial fisherman and some sport fishermen would overfish every species to extinction if their were no regulations.
What a @!$%#ing waste of meat! They cut off the dorsal fin and throw the rest of the shark in the water. Use the rest of the @!$%#ing fish! I usually have a problem with laws regarding the eating of animals, but this is perfectly fine with me. Killing an animal large enough to feed 50 people and wasting all but 5 pounds of it.... what a shame!
i say cut the balls off of the fisherman and restarant owners who serve the fins and serve their balls up in a soup concoction for the chineses and japanese. they won't know the difference.
One of the consumers might be "in the mood" after the meal and then assume it to be an aphrodisiac. Then all men would be in trouble....like the rhinos.
Halle-friken-luja. It's about time!
3 Cheers. I guess there is actually such thing as an intelligent politician. Now if we could go for two....
Did you just say "intelligent politician"?
"It is not logical to hunt a species to extinction." (Spock talking to Admiral Kirk about the near extinction of the humpback whale, Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home)
More stupid nonsense from MSNBC. Meanwhile the government tries to do an end-run around our 2nd Amendment rights and you people don't say a word about it. It is just as criminal for you state run reporting agencies to bury the truth as it was for the Nazis in 1937.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/27/the-un-gun-grabber/
sdhagerman, have you talked to your doctor about Zoloft? Its effective in treating schizophrenic paranoia. There are no Nazis and they are NOT coming to take your guns away. Seriously, take your medication, get off the computer, turn off Fox and go back to sleep before you hurt yourself.
Yes snake I would guess you are a gay fish. I suggest you read the article. BTW if you intend to write structured verse I suggest you learn how. What a loser.
That Is GooD News!!
Awesome. just in time b4 they become extinct.
it'll help cut down on the demand for the sharks.
it's all been for money, grrrrr
poor sharks.
I hate sharks and hope they do become extinct. They are opportunistic feeders, predators and useless except as food. They are dangerous and should be only kept in aquariums. Poor sharks my petootie. Remember JAWS!
You are forgetting that every species has importance in the chain of the eco systems. These creatures clean up our oceans, from species who die naturally and sink to the ocean floor... Everything has a purpose and reason for life.
"They are opportunistic feeders, predators"....reminds me of house cats...that kill song birds for the fun of it.
So I guess they are "useless except as food."
It is about time there was some regulation on the atrocity of taking shark for their fin. I really don't care about any supposed health benefits - cutting the fins off of a shark and throwing it back defenseless is as barbaric as it gets.
These are the same people who eat fresh monkey brain and try to outsmart poisonous puffer fish for food. Maybe it is time to get real and grow out of the dark ages.
Thank god this barbaric practice will stop in one place, at least. Shark fin soup, is a terrible atrocity. These animals are pulled into boats and have their fins cut off and are thrown back in to the ocean alive.....to die a painful and slow death. At least Hawaii has some sense of humanity. Now, if you can get other Asian Countries on board, things will actually start to change.
It's a good ban, and I have no sympathy for those who can afford eating shark fins. I'm from Chinese culture but don't eat that and wouldn't want to. I hate to see people killing sharks and wales for the fins or meat, which is really cruel.
89 million sharks killed per year! Wow! That's - let's see - about 250,000 per day!
But wait, if we're able to still catch and kill a quarter million sharks every day (including weekends and holidays!), doesn't that suggest that they are nowhere near extinct?
If we can catch and kill 89 million sharks per year, that must mean there are around a billion sharks out there waiting to be caught. But if there are a billion sharks, how extinct are they? They'd be chewing the legs off surfers by the hundreds per day!
So, because they may had a typo on the numbers, then are you saying that makes this barbaric practice okay?
The entire point to this article is that the shark population CANNOT sustain these kinds of losses for a much longer period of time. These people are preying even on endangered and protected species. I've seen footage of them finning whale sharks. It is utterly barbaric and some countries are run by the very mafia that benefits from the acquisition and sale of these shark fins, making it nearly impossible to end the trade and salvage what's left of the balance of the ecosystem.
Also, we, as humans, do not have a high enough fat content to make us appetizing to sharks. "Attacks" are accidents that happen because WE invade their habitat. Those numbers, the ones you say are too high to be plausible, are correct. There aren't many of these "attacks" because many species live in the open ocean, and coast dwellers tend to avoid humans. It is that kind of attitude that is destroying this planet. We are no more entitled to the Earth than any other species is. Try to say this again when the sharks are extinct and life in the oceans has been destroyed.
Rikki....the commercial fisherman are indiscriminate. They take the fins off any species of shark they catch, and some species are thought to be endangered, or nearly so.
Not easy to study something that lives in the oceans. Census workers can't even get an accurate count of how many people are living in the U.S.
Just because people manage to catch that many a day doesnt mean their species is safe from disappearing. Some species take a LOT longer to reproduce than others, and that is part of the very real danger.
Consumption´s too fast, reproduction very slow to match it.
The truth is that one state banning it is an extremely small step toward saving or trying to hault the damage we´ve already inflicted by overfishing. In the end, other marine species arent the only ones that will suffer the consequences. We all will.
Chances are you probably still wont understand what hit you.
I respect various countries dishes & eating habits. Shark Fin soup is a Chinese delicacy - great. Buy a plane ticket and visit China! Eat it every day, if you want while visiting. There is a good possibility you can have it shipped to you from a restaurant in China.
Hawaii banned it, that's their decision. Hawaii is part of America.
I did not complain when visiting China back in the late 70's that there were no McDonald's.
Sharks evolved almost unchanged since the dawn of Earths history while humankind was in a protoplasmic state. Must have been doing something right, having survived mass extinctions for almost a billion years. Mankind has only been around for a "blink of the eye" in comparison.
Shark fins curing a laundry list of ailments is pure snake oil. The alchemists of Medieval times thought it was possible to turn lead into gold.
Slicing the dorsal fins off sharks and throwing the fish into the ocean to die a slow and agonizing death would be synonoymus with slicing the arms off these fisherman and tossing them overboard to swim.
it's about time! to bad the oil is going to get them.
It's hard to believe that if a bowl of soup costs anywhere from $80 in Hawaii to $1000 in the East, that 80 million sharks are killed each year for soup! This is one of those statistics like 500,000 acres of rain forest are destroyed each year back in the 1990's. I guess all of the rain forests are gone now, so we are worrying about shark fins.
Anyone been to a restaurant this week that serves shark fin soup?
Cooked Mosquitos, that would be a good replacement. Nobody cares if they become extinct.
The 89 million number is a deceptively precise alternative to the regularly quoted 100 million. It is no typo - it is a poorly researched, no-basis estimate with holes big enough to swim a great white shark through. In fact, the 100 million number is usually stated as the number of great white sharks alone that are killed annually. Other sharks are in addition to that.
It is all a bunch of hooey.
My family does not eat shark fin and I do not condone it, but this 89 million hyperbole has got to stop.
Good for Hawaii, I agree about time. Shark finning is one of the shames of humans. To cut off the fins of a shark for soup? How about a little mercury with that shark fin soup?
Thousands of sharks are killed annually for this 'soup', our oceans do/did have a balance, removing so many of these predators will have an eventual effect on the health of our oceans.
Watch the movie "Sharkwater".
Way to stand up and be the first (that I know of) to stop this senseless action! now if we can just get china, japan, and thailand to follow suite, they are the largest consumers. hopefully more states will follow hawaii
Big question: If a Hawaiian goes to Hong Kong to eat shark fin soup on his eigthieth birtday, will he be punished under this law?
Very good question... one to which I do not know the answer
f*** the Chinese culture. all they do is wipe out our animals. f*** them. heartless, greedy b*******!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!