Dear Editor:
Re: Shark groups calls for ban on fin soup, Burnaby NOW, July 4
It has been said that 73 million sharks are killed each year. Some people, like Mr. Anthony Marr, called for the ban of sharks' fin. If sharks' fin is banned in every corner of the earth, shark hunting will cease to be an economic activity and the shark population will grow. I'd like to ask Mr. Marr the following questions:
1. If the shark population keeps growing, what good will it bring to the human race?
2. If the shark population keeps dropping, what evil will it do to the human race?
3. How much fish do 73 million sharks consume, bearing in mind that sharks are a warm-blooded animal, requiring a lot of calories to maintain their body temperature a few degrees above the surrounding water and to provide them with energy to keep swimming and chasing prey?
4. I am not a scientist and have no access to research results, but assuming that each shark eats an average of 11 kilograms of fish a day, it will eat about two tonnes in a year. Seventy-three million sharks will consume about 150 million tonnes a year. If no shark is killed from now on, the depletion of the fish stock in the ocean will not just be 150 million tonnes a year, but an arithmetical progression of that figure until the first 73 million sharks that escape death die of a natural causes.
5. When sharks leave insufficient marine life protein to human, what are we going to do? Will the United Nations command member countries to tax their people to hire fishermen to catch and kill sharks, because when sharks' fin cannot be sold, no fishermen will go to sea to hunt sharks to lose money?
I hope that people will consider these questions and points before continuing to push for the ban of sharks' fin. There are other ways to cut down the killing of sharks.
Henry Ho, Burnaby
