Editor’s note: Sharks are beautiful, intelligent creatures, but they have been overexploited for decades. Because of their “high market value” industrial fisheries hunt sharks for their fins and other body parts. But it’s difficult to control the protection of the sea predators when they move to unprotected zones or international and local fleets fish in other countries’ fishery zones. The brutal killings of adults, babies, and even pregnant sharks happen while our culture is focused on buying more stuff and attending distracting events.
If sharks went extinct, it would set off a chain reaction. Sharks play an important role in the food chain. Smaller animals like shellfish may go extinct if there were no sharks to eat seals, for example. That would create a ripple effect, causing mass die-offs of otters, seals, and many types of fish due to food scarcity. The chain reaction would continue until its effects were felt on land, with fisheries collapsing in a matter of years. When will humanity wake up and start living with – not against other precious beings?
by: Assaf Levy, BioDB via Pressenza
Shark awareness day
Every year on July 14th, we celebrate Shark Awareness Day. It is not just a tribute to one of nature’s most misunderstood creatures; it is a call to action. Sharks have cruised the oceans for over 450 million years, playing a vital role in keeping marine ecosystems healthy. But today, these apex predators find themselves under increasing pressure, with many species teetering on the brink of extinction.
Sharks: More Than Just Jaws
Hollywood might portray sharks as mindless killing machines, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Sharks come in a staggering variety of shapes and sizes, from the filter-feeding giants like the whale shark to the sleek and speedy blue shark. They possess incredible senses, like electroreception, that allows them to detect electrical fields emitted by prey, and an amazing ability to navigate vast distances.
As apex predators, they help maintain the balance by regulating the populations of species below them in the food chain. This includes controlling the numbers of mid-level predators and helping to ensure species diversity among smaller fish and invertebrate populations. Their feeding habits help keep marine ecosystems healthy and functional. For instance, by preying on weak or sick individuals, sharks help prevent the spread of disease and ensure a healthier gene pool within the prey population. Their disappearance could have devastating consequences, leading to population explosions of prey species and ultimately, the collapse of entire ecosystems.
A Cause for Alarm: Why Are Sharks Endangered?
Despite their importance, many shark species are alarmingly close to extinction. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), over one-third or 30% of shark species are either vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. Some of the most threatened species include the Great Hammerhead, the Oceanic whitetip, and the Basking shark.
The main culprit behind this is overfishing. Driven by demand for shark fins (a prized ingredient in shark fin soup) and meat, millions of sharks are caught every year, often through unsustainable practices like finning, where fins are removed and the body discarded.
Another major threat is habitat loss. Sharks rely on healthy coral reefs and mangroves for breeding and feeding. However, these vital ecosystems are being degraded by pollution, climate change, and coastal development.
A Ray of Hope: Conservation Efforts Underway
The silver lining in the story of sharks is the growing awareness and effort towards their conservation. Governments, NGOs, and international bodies are working together to protect these magnificent creatures:
- Protected Areas: Many marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established to provide safe havens for sharks where fishing is restricted or banned. One notable example of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) that provides a safe haven for sharks is the Chagos Marine Reserve in the Indian Ocean. This reserve is one of the world’s largest marine protected areas and encompasses a variety of marine environments. It offers significant protection to various shark species, among other marine life, by enforcing strict regulations that limit fishing and other extractive activities.
Another example is the Jardines de la Reina National Park in Cuba, which has been particularly successful in conserving shark populations. This MPA provides a refuge for several species of sharks and has implemented strict no-take policies and eco-tourism guidelines that help maintain the health and biodiversity of its waters.
Deadly Predators
Deadly predators,
Under the sea and on land
But, what’s more deadly?
A razor sharp, swimming shark
Or the end of marine life?
Poem by @saf_begum
- Regulations and Bans on Shark Finning: Shark finning, the brutal practice of removing a shark’s fins and discarding the rest of the body, has prompted global action through stringent regulations and international cooperation. Many countries now enforce laws that require sharks to be landed with fins naturally attached, enhancing sustainable practices and compliance. Furthermore, international agreements like CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) play a critical role in regulating the trade of endangered shark species to ensure their survival. These efforts are crucial in curbing unsustainable exploitation, promoting marine conservation, and supporting the recovery of shark populations worldwide.
- Sustainable Fishing Practices: Minimizing bycatch, the accidental capture of non-target species in fisheries, is crucial for preserving marine biodiversity, including sharks. Sustainable practices such as gear modification, implementing time and area closures, and employing bycatch reduction devices can significantly reduce unintended catches. Regulations that require fisheries to use circle hooks and turtle excluder devices (TEDs) help prevent the capture of non-target species like sharks and turtles. Additionally, real-time management of fisheries based on immediate data and promoting consumer awareness through eco-labeling, as mandated by organizations like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), can drive demand towards sustainably harvested seafood. These strategies not only help conserve marine species but also enhance the overall health of marine ecosystems and support the economic stability of fishing-dependent communities.
This Shark Awareness Day, let’s not only admire the majestic Great Whites and the elusive deep-sea dwellers but also ignite a global commitment to safeguard their future. Every shark species plays a pivotal role in marine ecosystems, balancing marine life and ensuring the health of our oceans.
Today, we must transcend admiration and take decisive action. Let’s pledge to protect these magnificent creatures, understanding that saving sharks is fundamentally about preserving the entire marine ecosystem. By protecting sharks, we are not just saving individual species; we are investing in the health and sustainability of our entire ocean. Join us in this crucial mission—educate, advocate, and participate. Together, we can turn the tide for sharks and secure a vibrant future for our blue planet.
The most important reason for the decimation of shark populations world wide is a superstition in Asian countries, especially China, that shark fins are an aphrodesiac. This stupid nonsense is deeply ingrained in Oriental cultures and tradtional mecical falacies. And many westerners, out of a misguided sense of political ccorrectness are reluctant to call them on it. Many so-called ”progressives” promote ancient Chinese superstitions as a viable medical system, little realizing that by doing so they are contributing to the extermination of sharks and other endangered species by helping to legitimize such irrational practices.
In recent years, traditional oriental medicines have drawn attention in the west and many people have been attracted to them. Of course the medical profession has been strongly against this fad since it is competition, but that is only to be expected. However there is another, and much more important reason to reject these traditional medicines, and that is the use of body parts of animals, many of them endangered, in treatments of dubious value. As the Chinese economy grows, so too does the assault on the environment by poachers seeking ingredients for quack medicines traditionally used in Chinese culture.
India is not far behind as a menace to the survival of many species. Both are sick, warped, defective cultures, highly disfunctional, and should be seen as such, not idealized, by short-sighted westerners. Chinese traditional medicine in particular, is
a monument to confirmation bias, cherry picking, and the seductive thrills of anti-establishment heresy.
There is nothing especially Chinese about what is now called Chinese medicine. It is a philosophical system, based on alleged properties of nature, such as correspondences between things that have no real relationship, but are thought to because of some superficial resemblence, or some other aspect of magical thinking, unrelated to facts.
Until around the year 1500 or so, there was not much difference betwen the theoretical world-views of the Far East and the Mediteranean Basin, but after that time, things began to change in the West, while the East remained the same. There were many military and other historical reasons for that, but by the late 19th century, the West was so far ahead that the superiority of Western science was evident and countries like China and Japan were trying hard to modernize.
They have now largely succeeded.
But there is now a reaction going on, comparable to the Goethean nature mystics in the late 18th century, in Germany, who rebelled against the “English science” of Newton and tried to set up a “German science” in it’s place. The attempt failed, but was revived for a time by the Nazis, who objected to “Jewish science” and demanded that all forms of science be developed by “Aryans”. We all know where that led to.
The Soviet Union also had a political-based biology, Lysenkoism, based on the Communist theory that nothing was genetic and everything could be changed by changing the environbment. This led to disasters in agriculture Today, in America, the politically powerful Christian Right wants to decide what is truth in biology on the basis of their religious traditions.
Under Mao, the Chinese communists wanted to revive the traditrional medicine of China to bolster nationalistic pride and confidence. They promoted it strongly in rural China, among ignorant peasants who had no idea of modern science, but became strongly indoctrinated with this nationalistic fervor. This politically motivated miseducation persists today, and in Western liberal circles Chinese Traditional Medicine is often accepted unthinkingly by semi-educated intellectuals who do not realize what they are doing.
Facts are facts and cannot be changed or affected by religious or nationalistic ideologies. The ancient traditional system of Chinese medicine is a worthless superstition. But that is not the important thing about it. What matters is that it is also a highly destructive system that is doing immense damage to wildlife all over the world and must be fought at evey turn.
Anyone encouraging people to use or have respect for Chinese medicine is contributing to the killing of endangered species or in some cases, to their confinement and torture for these bogus medical products.
But there is no arguing with ideologues by presenting facts.
Chinese culture has one of the worst records on earth for the way they treated women, slaves, and prisoners throughout their long history, and the use of animal body parts is an integral part of the medical system and tradition there and always has been.
Total disregard for the pain or welfare of animals is a part of the Chinese culture that also includes foot-binding of women, extreme torture of prisoners, mass-execution of slaves as a funeral tribute for leaders, and permanent, life-long grinding poverty for most people so a small upper class could enjoy riches and have the leisure to discuss philosophy.
There is and always has been a counter-tradition of respect for life in Buddist philosophy, just as there is in Judeo-Christian theology, but it is a very small minority position and to extrapolate from the philosophy of a few thinkers, as out of step with the culture around them as Reich was with that of 20th century America, to a general impression of Chinese culture as humane and ethical is as far-fetched as saying St. Francis of Asize represents how Christians treat animals.
Some articles in the west conceed the important ground by admiting the claimed treatments are effective, then advocate abandoning them for moral and ethical reasons. That will not work. Try making that argument to the mother of a dying child! Moral suasion does not work and never will. Do you really think some 50-year-old high-level executive of a big multi-national corporation would abandon all hope of ever having an active sex-life again because someone tells him killing rhinos for their horns is unethical?
Chinese medicine is not as integrated a coherent system as it looks from the outside. It seems to all hang together from a philosophical standpoint, but in reality, it contains many distinct elements, and the effeciveness of one, such as accupuncture, for example, is no evidence for the effectiveness of the rest of the system.
The philosophy of a small number of thinkers who happen to be Chinese does not have anything to do with the existence of a traditional system of Chinese medicine that is nothing but a useless and murderous attack on the natural world by ignorant supertitious peasants who have fallen for a crank notion that a superficial resemblence of an animal organ to a sick human organ means it is a cure for illnesses that are more likely to have been caused in the first place by the very same armored culture that now tells the patient what will cure him.
And the philosophy itself is not consistant or in agreement with facts of the natural world. Chinese philosophy considers “heat” and “cold” for example, to be paired oposites, whereas in reality, there is a continuous spectrum from absolute zero to so hot it cannot be measured because the instruments would vaporize before they could measure anything. . There is no such thing as “cold” in the real world, only varying degrees of heat, and this is true of all the other paired oposites upon which Chinese philosophy is based. They represent the armored picture of the world, as filtered through the senses of armored Chinese philosophers, but Chinese philosophy considers such oposing pairs to be central to the way the universe is constructed. The whole concept of Yin / Yang, upon which the Chinese world-view is based, is an armored one, not compatible with the far more accurate depiction of how nature functions found in Reich’s writings. It is only one more example of armored thinking, reflecting the schitzophrenic split described so well by Reich
One of the most important causes of impending extinction of most species of large mammals is the absurd use of animal body parts in stupid quack medicines believed in by millions of ignorant peasants in oriental countries. This malignant superstition is bad enough, but adding to the insanity is the endorsement of this stupidity by many otherwise sensible Westerners, who often parrot the line of the oriental exterminationists out of a misguided spirit of “tolerance” and “respect for other cultures”. This tolerance is based on irrational feelings of colective guilt, but often rationalized with elaborate pseudo-medical “theories” derived from some ancient oriental philosophical traditions that have no validity whatsoever.
It is criminally irresponsible for educated westerners, who should know better, to make statements in support of these pathological oriental medical traditions that claim animal parts are of medicinal value. Traditional Oriental medicine is nothing more than a crackpot superstition on a par with bleeding a sick person or sacrificing slaves to the gods, and we can be glad real medicine has outgrown such idiocy. That Asiatic nations still have to grow up and learn the facts discovered by science is deplorable, but for people in more modern countries, with the supposed benefits of a modern education, to willfully share their ignorance and give moral support to these psychopaths is a psychosis than must not be ignored.
The failure of the War On Drugs shows that as long as there is a big enough demand for something, law enforcement alone will not stop people from obtaining it. Sure, we need more game wardens, more Internal Affairs officers to keep the game wardens honest so they do not take bribes, more high-tech equipment to detect poachers, more undercover investigators to infiltrate smuggling rings, harsher punisments for poaching, international agreements to get co-operation on enforcement of animal protection laws, and all the other measures we can think of. But all these measures did not stop people from smoking pot, which is only a mild entertainment that nobody really needs, not a life-saving medicine.
As long as the demand exists, the Drug War fiasco shows that all law enforcement can do is drive up prices of the illegal product until there are enough people willing to take the risk of supplying it. And there will always be plenty of them if the price is high enough, even if we had police authorized to do on-the-spot executions of any even suspected poachers instead of trials and mere imprisonment as a possible consequence.
So we have to reduce demand. And that means educating the public to realize these so-called “medicines” do not work. People must be taught to regard Chinese traditional medicine as the useless quakery it is, not told, “This is good for you, ir could save your life, or your child’s life, but please do not use it because it is bad for some wild animal somewhere”.
It is not likely that many people will care about some wild animal someplace when they or a family member is sick. But they might be less willing to try an expensive alleged remedy if they were told in absolutely certain terms by authoritative scientists that it would not help them and was only a stupid superstition left over from a less enlightened age.
So the issue we have to deal with is the effeciveness of these junk remedies. We need to brainstorm about ways to convince people that traditional Chinese medicine is not effective.
Even the best-intentioned Greens, by endorsing Chinese traditional medicines, unintentionally bolster the slaughter of wildlife, even if what they think they are doing is helping sick people get well.
One very important reason so many westerners are so enthusiastic about Chinese medicine is a feeling of collective guilt in which westerners who feel guilty about past injustices committed by western nations against non-western ones tend to take the side of the non-westerners on every issue. Many Americans, for example, are willing to allow Indians to kill members of endangered species because they consider stopping them to be “cultural genocide” or “cultural imperialism”. Such people are frequently also willing to suspend scientific judgement and accept Indian medicinal treatments because of a feeling that the Indians were so badly treated by our ancestors that today they should not be criticized.
Another motive is the lack of confidence in modern conventional medicine, which is (wrongly) identified with western culture, and often seen as too mechanistic or too influenced by economic considerations. This leads some to think Oriental medicine is better because they are less familiar with it’s social structures and do not see it’s failings.
In the 1960s, the New Left was largely distinguished from the Old Left by the rejection of the leadership of the Soviet Union and the replacement of it by Communist China as a role model for Communism. Most of the New Left were willing to reject the Soviet model and denounce Stalinism as tyrany, but saw Chairman Mao as a hero and savior. And the steps taken by Chairman Mao and his movement to bring medical care to the rural Chinese included combining modern medicine with the cheaper and more popular traditional treatments the peasants would find familiar, hence more acceptable. Both acceptance and affordability depended on this inclusion of ancient traditions in the treatment programs offered.
China today is not a Communist country, but still calls itself that, just as the United States is not a democracy, but calls itself one, and England is not really a Monarchy, but still calls itself one. But the aura of Communism still lingers and many western leftists still tend to see anything done by China, especially anything done by Chairman Mao, as worthy of their uncritical support.
Of course the medical effectiveness of any treatment is a seperate issue from the environmental impact of it, but given the factual effect that popularizing Chinese medicine contributes greatly to extinction of many species, anyone popularizing them adds to the environmental problems, regardless of what his motives may be, or what he himself may think his motives are. Chinese medicine is a de facto destructive cult and should be strongly discouraged, not irresponsibly promoted as some sort of savior of the sick.
But since nobody is going to deprive himself of any potentially useful treatment for environmental reasons, if there were any practical effectiveness of Chinese medicine, we might as well give up and resign ourselves to living in a world devoid of large mammals. Chinese medicine is worthless, and to keep pressing that point home is the most effective tool we have to discourage it’s use and hopefully, someday before it is too late, to eliminate it entirely.
Until less than 200 years ago, medicine in Europe included bleeding patients to treat illnesses, using leaches to suck blood out of them, miraculous cures from bits of the True Cross, or bones of saints, and other dubious cures.
Malaria is called that from the Latin for “bad air” because it was thought the vapors from swamps caused it. Today, we know it is transmitted by insect bites. Miasms were thought to be the cause of many diseases that are now understood to be caused by something else.
Europeans used to think drinking from a unicorn horn would cure anything. They never found out otherwise because it took a virgin to catch a unicorn and since virgins do not exist, nobody could qualify as a unicorn hunter.
Plants like mandrake, that happened to look like a human body part were assumed to be good for treating that organ. And, as still in India today, every treatment was prescribed according to astrology.
For a good idea of all the medical superstitions believed in by pre-modern Europeans, see the works of Rudolph Steiner. His Anthroposophical medicine is a distillation of all the nonsense Austrian farmers had accumulated in 2,000 years.
The western countries certainly have their own destructiveness, and that should not be condoned. But the western countries are the ones that lead the drive, such as it is, to protect wildlife and the environment in all parts of the world, at least from this particular form of exploitation. So if the effectiveness of these exploitive forms of medical treatment was accepted in those western countries, there would be no voices raised against the international trade in endangered species.
We certainly cannot expect people to voluntarily forego a life-saving treatment if they have any reason to expect it will cure them. Appeals to empathy with other species or ecological concerns are of very limited value with the vast majority of people and cannot be relied upon.
On the other hand, if the position is highly publicized, and can be backed up with solid data, that these traditional treantments are worthless, there is a much better chance that the western nations will keep up the fight to protect the exploited species and that modernizing and progressive-minded people in the more backward nations will see abandoning their out-dated traditions as a needed step in developìng their countries into a modern society.
If the west were to concede the effectiveness of Chinese medicine, there would then be enormous pressure in western countries to stop obstructing the “harvesting” of “needed medicines”, whatever the cost to the species involved. We could expect all sorts of rationalizations to the effect that endangered sub-species are not really distinct or that there are really a lot more of them than we know about, or that they serve no important ecological purpose and can be eliminated safely, or other such claims that crop up whenever a species of economic value is proposed for listing as protected. Adding consumer demand from western countries to the already unsustainable demand from Asia would spell the extinction of most large animals on earth.
The demand for shark fin soup in China is not just a matter of taste or custom; it is because according to Chinese superstition, any animal part such as a shark dorsal fin or a rhino horn, that “sticks up” is a symbol of the male sex organ and ingesting it will increase sexual potency. This symbolism is the basis of all Chinese medicine and there is no scientific validity to it whatsoever. It is a common falacy that was once found in the West, in the Middle Ages, but fortunately has now been outgrown and unfortunately still survives in backward places like China among the uneducated savages.
British general Sir Charles James Napier, while stationed in India, responded to Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati by British authorities. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. He replied:
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them.
And that is how the more civilized nations ought to respònd to the primitive Chinese and their idiotic nonsense. Well, I cannot make US policy, but one thing I can do, is to speak out against Chinese medicine at every oportunity.
It is hard to understand why an educated person from a Western cultural background, would fall for a silly Chinese superstition, but many liberal-minded people do, especially those who are impressed by so-called “alternative” medical treatments. This is partly due to a failure to distinguish between valid and invalid unorthodox medical methods, but also, to a considerable degree, to irrational guilt feelings over past confrontations between Western and non-western cultures and their alienation from their own cultural background. They apparently think anything with a long tradition or from a non-western culture must be more true than the findings of science. Such individuals, suffering from a faulty education which emphasises historical collective guilt over scientific thinking, are a part of the environmental problem facing the world today.
Anyone in a Western country who encourages or uses Chinese medicne is falling for a dangerous myth and contributing to the destruction of the biosphere. So I will continue to oppose Chinese medicine at every chance. It is among the very worst of all the many forms of destruction going on on this planet today, right up there with nuclear power and population growth as menaces to be fought.
https://www.deseret.com/2012/10/19/20442691/shark-finning-hitting-persian-gulf-sharks-hard/
Illegal fishing is a huge problem, and not just for sharks. Most of the fish & seafood we eat is now caught illegally. Industrial fishing is immoral and ecologically harmful, and doing that illegally makes it that much worse. And as usual, human overpopulation is the root of the problem, because these animals are killed to feed people (even shark fins are used for soup, not just for their alleged medicinal properties).
Like all other environmental and ecological problems, the physical roots of this one are overpopulation and wrongful lifestyles/overconsumption. Until those problems are fixed, which will take a very long time, things like this will continue apace.
All of the 200 or so species of shark are down to around 2% of their historic numbers. In China, shark fin soup is a staple at weding feasts because of it’s supposed aphrodesiac properties. The demand for it as a food is not unrelated to it’s assumed medical uses.
A major portion of the protein requirements of millions of people comes from fish. If fishing was stopped these people would have to eat something. Land used for grazing livestock is mostly marginal land, not good for growing crops, so if livestock grazing was also ended, or at least not greatly expanded to make up for the lack of fish, there would be only one way to keep feeding all the people who now eat fish: most of the remaining forests of the world would have to be cleared for growing crops.
There is no solution and never will be any solution as long as population remains high. That includes any possible changes in lifestyle or consumption habits. Trying to get people to change their lifestyles and consumption habits is useless. It will not work. Ever. As long as there are still 8,000,000,000 human locusts infesting this finite planet, no possible changes in lifestyles and consumption will have any effect.
Fortuneately, the problem may soon solve itself. Due to chemical pollution of the air, food, and water supply, fertility has been falling rapidly in all the industrialized countries and many young coupple are seeking aid from fertility clinics or turning to adopting children from non-industrialized countries. Sperm counts have fallen drasticly nearly everywhere. Population growth is still rampant in Africa and Latin America, but in Europe and the USA is driven only by immigration from the Global South. If this keeps up, we may soon see populations dying out from lack of new members.