Shark fins

Seafood traders have had enough of all the cruel practices used when hunting sharks and have made an agreement amongst each other to help bring it to an end. The plan is to create a task force, one which would make sure hat sharks are not finned and thrown back into the water.

The Marine Products Association in Hong Kong commented yesterday that a conservation and management committee will be ready to do some actual good about half a year from now. It will include marine experts, nongovernmental organizations and of course the seafood traders who started the whole ball of wax rolling.

Charlie Lim Tin-que, the general secretary of the Marine Products Association, announced the creation of this task force, slash conservation and management committee, at the International Marine Conference yesterday. This conference is widely attended by international marine experts, seafood traders, officers from Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and the Customs and Excise Department.

Lim took the podium and had a very attentive audience as he explained: “Due to the raised public concern on international finning incidents, in which fishermen are said to be cutting whale sharks’ fins while still alive and then releasing them back into the sea to die a slow and painful death, we decided to set up an advisory committee on banning the trade in endangered species and illegal food importation,”

There you have it, in six months we will have an anti shark-finning task force, and they sound like they mean business. One can only hope this doesn’t escalate into some form of heavily armed vigilantism…