The whale shark is the world's largest fish. It has been known to grow to over 18m in length. Because its meat is as white and tender as tofu, it is often called the "tofu shark," and because it is gentle and moves slowly, it is also called "the great naive shark." Almost nowhere, except Taiwan, is the shark eaten by humans. The US, Australia, the Philippines and the Maldives list it as an endangered species. Taiwanese, on the other hand, go as far as the Philippines to catch it illegally and smuggle it into the country.
The demand for shark's fin is another major threat to the species. Surveys conducted in Hong Kong and Taiwan show that many consumers are unaware that the fin is obtained by means of exces-sive and illegal fishing practices that include simply cutting off the fins of living sharks and then throwing them back into the sea so that storage space can be used for more valuable fish. Many of these finless sharks sink to the seabed where they either bleed to death or struggle on for a few days before starving to death.
Of all the areas in the world where the whale shark is caught and eaten, animal protection organizations are focusing their attention mainly on areas with an ethnic-Chinese population due to the Chinese appetite for shark's fin. Not only is Taiwan the main international trader of shark's fin, it is also one of the main nations that fishes for whale sharks.
According to the nation's whale-shark traders, the size of shark fins on the market has become ever smaller in recent years. This is probably related to overfishing of the whale shark, making it impossible for these sharks to grow naturally. According to statistics provided by Professor Chen Che-tsung (
When whale sharks are fully grown, after about 25 to 30 years, they measure more than nine meters in length. The average length of those received at Cheng-kung Harbor (the port receiving the most whale sharks in Taiwan) has decreased from almost six meters four years ago to just over four meters, and the average weight has dropped from over 1,500kg to a little over 640kg. They are filling Taiwanese stomachs, then, before they have a chance to become fully grown.
The Fisheries Administration is continuing to implement the whale shark fishing report system introduced in April last year in response to calls from the international community for protection management. It has also entrusted National Taiwan Ocean University with the task of marking whale sharks and asked the university to create a multiple-stage plan to protect the species. The first stage of this plan will begin in July, initially restricting the annual catch to 80 fish. In fact Taiwan's annual catch for the last three years has been approximately 80, so restricting it to that figure serves little purpose.
At the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endan-gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), some suggested that the whale shark and two other kinds of sharks should be included on the endangered species list. Even though no consensus has been reached, CITES has asked nations to carry out research on the whale shark in order to establish appropriate methods of protection management.
The Philippines and India, which used to catch whale sharks for export to Taiwan, quickly responded to the calls for protection by declaring a ban on the fishing and trading of the shark. By doing nothing more than introducing a system for reporting on fishing activities, Taiwan appears uncivilized and narrow-minded in comparison.
Scholars in Taiwan have been calling for protection of the whale shark for a decade without any response from the government. The main reason Taipei hesitates to clamp down on whale shark fishing is that it is afraid of a repeat of the mass protests by fishermen when dolphin fishing was banned.
There is already an international trend toward the protection and management of whale sharks and Taiwan is the biggest consumer of the fish. Therefore, there is no reason why the government should not tighten measures to protect it.
In fact the whale shark has a potentially great value for tourism, and the value of a live shark far exceeds that of a dead one. While the whale shark is treated as a meal in Taiwan, it lives in harmony with man in the seas off the coast of Western Australia, generating at least NT$200 million from eco-tourism a year. I hope that one day when these great, friendly sharks swim in the seas off Taiwan, people will want to swim and dive with them instead eat them.
Sakya Chuan-fa is secretary-general of the Life Conservationist Association (
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