The picture shown here is a shark without a fin, that was found dead on the ocean floor. The reason as to why sharks die without fins is because the sharks no longer have that "swimming motion" and therefor water is not passed through from their gills for oxygen and they die.
Summary:
The article I read was about how the California Senate had just recently "passed a legislation banning the possession, sale, or trade of shark fins." As the article states, about 73 million sharks are cut a year and their fins are cut off and they are sent back into the ocean to die. Some shark species are now to be considered endangered because of this act and so many are happy this law. Others are not as happy because they make their profits off of the shark fins. This ban can make an impact on California because they have two huge Asian fish markets in which shark fins are eaten here more than any other state. One said that they percent of shark fins caught and eaten by the community is small, as to where most of it is from abroad.
Opinion/Reflection :
I feel as though this issue should be brought up more in other countries or states besides California. Yes I know maybe some sharks people catch are baby sharks and are worth throwing back into the ocean to be dead, but don't they understand that they're doing harm to the community of the animals and also the population of them? It sickens me that humans are a cause of endangered animals because we don't think twice about things like these. We don't go into research about it, we act before we think.
Questions:
1)Why isn't shark fining brought up a lot in the media if it's such a big problem on the west coast?
2) What are the people that make profits off of the shark fins now going to do since this is now banned to even have possession of them?
3) Besides shark fining, are there any other major problems that us as humans cause to harm the sharks in general to decrease their population?
4) Are they going to eventually pass a law that restricts California from importing shark fins from out of country like Asia?
The Shark Research Institute in Australia has recently discovered that every year shark fin soup and commercial fishing kills 100 million sharks, some of which are even endangered.
ReplyDeleteThere are 30 different shark species put on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s threatened species list as of now.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1624397/sharks_populations_decreasing_attacks_on_the_rise
Because of shark fin soup, our ecosystem is also put into danger. In a Discovery News article a man commented on the situation "Sharks are one of our oceans' top predators, keeping the entire ecosystem in check, but many shark populations are now endangered as a result of human greed and lack of understanding," said Chin. If sharks become extinct the ocean, and our ecosystem, will change tremendously. It's definitely a good thing possesing and trading shark fins have been banned.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/california-bans-shark-fins-110909.html
Is shark fin such a necessary commodity that people are willing to damage species and ecosystems for it? It doesn't make sense. Are there any substitutes for it? What could be used instead?
ReplyDeleteI also noticed that this issue ties into the biodiversity lesson we've been learning in class. Sharks are a necessary part of the ocean ecosystem and when humans hunt and endanger them, the whole ecosystem is damaged.
Shark finning should be limited or even banned because of the state of the sharks species. Before we know it the endangerment of the shark species will be declining rapidly because of us humans again. This problem needs to be stopped before it has the chance to escalate into a bigger problem then it already is.
ReplyDeleteMaybe shark fining isn't brought up a lot in the media because people aren't worried if the sharks die off but as long as their stomachs are full their happy...monsters.
The people that used to make a profit off of shark fins will probably start catching fish and selling fish instead. There will probably still be some people that keep selling shark fin illegally. People will probably make up an excuse of why they should be allowed to sell shark fin too because that's what people always do when something is becoming extinct and they make money off of it.
ReplyDelete