ViceZilla’s Views

Nine new species of sharks are to be added to the official list of animals at risk of extinction. Dr Baum, a marine ecologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego claim, “If we carry on without doing anything about it we are looking at a high risk that some of these could be extinct within our lifetime.”

Millions of sharks are taken by recreational fisherman and as bycatch by fleets fishing for tuna, but the real culprit for the decimation of sharks in our Ocean’s is the demand for shark fins. 100 million sharks a year are removed from the Oceans just for their fins to feed the demand for Shark Fin Soup. Finning has become a profitable venture for fisherman because as the demand for shark fins increases, so does the price.

Online marketer Alibaba.com makes the situation worse by trading shark fins globally, over the internet. By Alibaba’s complicity in marketing fins online, it has opened up avenues of trade for the illegal fisherman and marketers of fins to sell their product to a global marketplace. The demand has risen for shark fins, and so has the price. The wealthy and affluent in China view Shark Fin Soup as a status symbol, and don’t think twice about forking over $100 for a bowl of the stuff.

Not only are the sharks populations being decimated, but the resulting effects on the Oceans’ ecosystems are being thrown out of balance by the removal of it’s apex predators. The domino effect it is causing is of major concern as well.

If nothing is done to put an end to the slaughter of the Ocean’s sharks, the Oceans and it’s inhabitants will be changed forever.

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Tags: Stop the Finning! //