Several college students and an environmental group have joined forces to launch a six-month campaign next month to urge the public to boycott shark fin soup and protect the ocean’s ecosystem.
A team of nine students from Taoyuan-based Chung Yuan Christian University has worked on organizing a boycott campaign with the Taipei-based Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan since July last year.
Shark fin soup has long been considered a Chinese delicacy. Demand for the soup has been blamed on the illegal killing of nearly 300,000 sharks off Brazil since 2009, according to a BBC report last year.
People in Taiwan often eat shark fin soup on special occasions, such as wedding banquets, organizers said, adding that consumption is expected to spike this year because many couples want to marry in the 100th anniversary year of the founding of the Republic of China.
Therefore the number sharks killed will rise as well, the organizers said.
That is why the students chose to target couples planning weddings this year and will urge them to take shark fin soup off their wedding banquet menus.
The students plan to use Facebook as a channel to promote the idea, hoping to get boycott pledges from people between the ages of 25 and 35, who are frequent users of social networking Web sites.
Students say the project helped motivate them to pay more attention to environmental issues.
“Before I worked on this project, I never paid attention to issues like this,” said 25-year-old Suan Jung-ren (孫仲人), who leads the team. “More young people should pay attention to this [tragedy] and give their support.”
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
Taiwan successfully defended its women’s 540 kilogram title and won its first-ever men’s 640 kg title at the 2026 World Indoor Tug of War Championships in Taipei yesterday. In the women’s event, Taiwan’s eight-person squad reached the final following a round-robin preliminary round and semifinals featuring teams from Ukraine, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, the Basque Country and South Korea. In the finals, they swept the Basque team 2-0, giving the team composed mainly of National Taiwan Normal University students and graduates its second championship in a row, and its fourth in five years. Team captain
RSS