The government should ban shark-finning to not only conserve sharks but also avoid creating a negative image of the country to the rest of the world, local and foreign conservationists said yesterday.
At a press conference yesterday in Taipei, a six-minute videotape about what shark-finning entails was shown to the public. In the documentary, the remainder of an injured shark, whose fins had been removed on board, was discarded at sea.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Conservationists from Life Conservation Association and WildAid, an international conservation group, said these ghastly images are just part of the extreme brutality sharks are subjected to.
The videotape has been played in the UK, the US and Singapore. It will be played in more countries where WildAid campaigns against shark-finning.
According to conservationists, while the Taiwanese public tries to play its part in shark conservation, Taiwan remains the largest fin-trader in the world.
"Before the government takes any action, consumers should refuse shark-fin soup," Buddhist Master Shih Chao-hui (釋昭慧) of Life Conservation Association said.
Shih said that people should consider the inhumanity behind the consumption of shark-fin soup.
Every year millions of sharks are killed to meet the ever growing demand for shark-fin soup.
Conservationists from WildAid said Taiwanese shark-fishing companies take advantage of the poverty of developing countries, which often cannot afford to enforce their own laws against shark-finning.
In a recently completed report entitled "Shark Finning: Unrecorded Wastage on a Global Scale," Taiwanese ships are blamed for depleting the resources of other countries in their race to meet demand for shark fins.
The report highlighted two recent cases in Costa Rica. One case was exposed in July, when a video was shot showing about 30 bags of shark fins found at a private dock where Taiwanese fishing vessels often land their hauls of shark fins.
It later transpired that the official cargo declaration from the Taiwanese vessel, Ho Tsai Fa No. 18, was for 60,000kg of shark fins.
The other case involved the seizure of 30 tonnes of fins belonging to the Goidau Roey No.1, which was flying a Panamanian flag, on May 31.
"We urge the Council of Agriculture to enact legislation to prevent Taiwanese fishing companies overseas from finning sharks, even if this means putting a governmental observer on every vessel," said Susie Watts, a WildAid consultant who wrote the report.
Wu Hsinn-charng (
"The available evidence accusing Ho Tsai Fa No. 18 is relatively weak because the fin and the remainder are often managed separately," Wu said.
Wu said the second case was irrelevant to Taiwan because the vessel was registered overseas.
Wu said Costa Rica did not officially ban shark finning until last month.
There are more than 380 species of sharks. Wu said Taiwanese fishermen catch certain species, such as silky sharks and blue sharks, to ensure resources are sustainable.
Endangered species, which grow slowly and have late sexual maturity, have been protected by Taiwan since July last year, when a limit of 80 was set on the number of whale sharks that could be caught every year.
According to the council, 800,000 tonnes of sharks are fished annually in the world. Taiwan ranks fifth in shark fishing, with its 7 percent share worth more than NT$1 billion.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats