Fin Soup exterminate Shark species!!

Fin Soup Spurs Shark Decline
Jan 2, 2008-The dlicacy is a status symbol in fast-growing China, where demand has caused a starting drop in the number of sharks in the Atlantic.


Shark Alert! Species Struggle
Feb15,2008-After 450 million years swimminig the ocean, some shark species are on the verge of extinction-mainly due to overfishing.

Shark fin is one of the most expensive foods in the world. In the United States, where finning is prohibited, a bowl of shark-fin soup can sell for $70 to $150. For trophy species like the whale and basking shark, a single fin can fetch $10,000 to $20,000.In commercial fishing, shark fin is much more in demand than sharkflesh. Consequently, many fishing vessels slice off the fin and dump the carcass overboard—a "brutal and wasteful" practice called "finning,"Hong Kong, the world's shark-fin center, handles about 50 percent of the market, said Clarke. Singapore ranks second.

Some chicken stock, a few mushrooms, chicken breast, scallions, a little sherry, oil, spices—shark fin soup is fairly easy to prepare. But to make soup for six, you'll also need about a pound (half a kilogram) of shark fin meat.Demand for that crucial ingredient has led to the killing of a median of about 38 million sharks a year, just for the fins!!Researchers concluded that from 1996 to 2000 26 to 73 million sharks were traded yearly. The annual median for the period was 38 million—nearly four times the UN estimates but considerably lower than those of many conservationists.China's growing middle class may be buying shark-fin meat simply to prove are able to for the delicacy has little nutritional value and hardly any flavor.

"Sharks are the tigers and lions and cheetahs and leopards of the sea. And if we lose them—these top predators—there will be long-term damage," Sharks eat angel fish, butterfly fish and blue chromis.Butterfly fish eat coral polyps.(Coral polyps are nutients to many reef fishes)Blue chromis eat animal plankton.Angelfish eat sponges.
"They're slow reproducing, late to mature, more like mammals than fish in their biology—and we're completely trashing them.

N.B. Coral polyps: Coral reefs consist of hundreds and thousands of soft-bodied, invertebrate animals, having no backbone. These animals are called coral polyps. The individual polyp is radially symmetrical and has a tubular body with tentacles surrounding the mouth at the upper end. Each polyp’s body wall consists of two layers of cells, an outer layer called the ectoderm and an inner endoderm layer. A gelatinous material called mesogloea is found in between these two layers.

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