Say NO to shark fin products (exotic food restaurants)

Take the No Shark Fin Pledge

Help stop needless cruelty and save endangered species: Say NO to shark fin products.

Each year, millions of sharks are hunted, their fins sliced off, and then thrown back into the ocean -- dead or dying. "Finning" is done to make dishes such as shark fin soup, which may be served by Chinese restaurants and during Lunar New Year celebrations, weddings, and other celebratory events.

Consuming shark fin soup is cruel and unnecessary. And not only does shark fin have little taste, it can contain high levels of mercury.

Most fins for soup are obtained by the brutal practice of “finning,” which is carried out in all the world’s oceans. Sharks are caught and hauled out of the water. Their fins and sometimes their tails are sliced off, and the fish are thrown back into the ocean. Many of them are still alive. They cannot swim without fins, so they helplessly sink into the water to the ocean bottom, to die slowly or be eaten by predators. It is estimated that 73 million sharks are killed each year in this fashion.

Sharks are apex predators, situated at the top of the food chain. When they disappear, the prey they would have eaten become more numerous. The species these secondary predators eat are then hard hit; it has been observed that populations of such tertiary prey species as scallops, clams, and spiny lobsters were ravaged after the numbers of local sharks diminished drastically. This is the situation from the culinary consumer’s point of view. From the marine biologist’s point of view it is a grim picture of a possible ecological collapse. One thing has been learned from similar situations: there will be a domino effect but it is not easy to predict what will fall.