Environmental protection groups, a global natural cosmetics company and an Asian entertainment company yesterday launched a campaign calling on Taiwanese to stop eating shark’s fin to save sharks and the ocean’s ecosystem.
The group launched the “Pledge No to Shark Fin Soup” campaign at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei, with wall photographs of Taiwanese celebrities with “I’m FINished with FINS — Protect sharks, I refuse to eat fins” written on them.
British performance artist Alice Newstead was also present, with fish hooks piercing her skin as her body hung in the air.
Photo: CNA
Newstead said although it was painful, she wanted to convey to the public the pain that sharks feel when they are caught just for their fins.
Shark Savers Organization director Sue Chen said: “Sharks keep the ocean and seafood healthy, because they eat sea creatures that are diseased, dying or dead. They’ve been doing that for almost 450 million years.”
“We have a big problem today because of one dish — shark fin,” she said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Sharks are dying out fast because of overfishing and because they cannot reproduce quickly, but everyone can help fix the problem by saying no to shark’s fin soup, Chen said.
“Overfishing of sharks is are happening in distant waters, where most people can’t see [it] and do not know the serious consequences,” said John Lu (呂子柏), the organization’s Asia area director, adding that most people would care if they knew because people protect what they love.
Overfishing is not only threatening the survival of the species, but also the marine ecology.
If the ocean ecosystem is destroyed, there will no future for human beings either, he added.
The groups said up to 73 million sharks are killed annually and shark fin soup — a dish eaten by millions of people at weddings, business dinners and banquets — is causing the destruction of the world’s sharks.
The Life Conservationist Association said that longline fishing — the method used by most Taiwanese vessels for catching sharks — is a cruel fishing technique, because it leaves the captured prey bleeding to death in the water and often bycatch other untargeted species.
Lu said more than 20 celebrities in Taiwan have agreed to join the campaign, willing to help raise public awareness and encourage people to stop eating shark fin.
For more information about the anti-shark fin campaign, visit the organization’s Web site: www.sharksavers.org.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
RSS