Saturday 2 March 2013

China Shark Kills

Regular readers will know that one of the things I campaign against is killing sharks for their fins. The emerging middle class in China puts a high price on shark fin soup, regarded as a delicacy, and many species are in danger of extinction as a direct result. This photo by S. Heinrichs, showing Shark Fins for sale in Taiwan, brings home the scale of the problem. Marine scientists at a number of US and Canadian universities estimate that between 63 million and 273 million sharks were killed in 2010 (CLICK). This estimate is vague, because there is no data for the millions of sharks whose fins are cut off at sea while still alive and are then thrown back in the sea to drown. (Sharks need to swim to pass water over their gills in order to "breathe".) The colossal waste of killing sharks for their fins, elephants for their tusks and rhinos for their horns, has made China World Wildlife Enemy No 1. Isn't it time the world educated China?

2 Comments:

At 2/3/13, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just how do we do it. GIve us a hint, I am curious.

 
At 2/3/13, Blogger Unknown said...

You could write to the Embassy of the People's Republic of China, 49–51 Portland Place, London, W1B 4JL or go in person to complain.

You could visit the embassy's website:
http://www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/ and complain or email
jiaoyuchu@edu-chinaembassy.org.uk
(its Education Section).

A year or two ago I sent the embassy an email about a mistake on its website and received a nice reply.

Or you could ask Avaaz to create a petition, then sign it and send it to all your friends.

You could also start a No 10 petition to get our PM to complain to the Chinese government.

Loads of options.

 

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