Reader mail: Shark Fin propaganda

Last weekend, longtime SFS reader Suzy sent me an interesting question. Suzy is Asian, and though she is a committed conservationist, several members of her family regularly eat shark fin soup. One relative just sent her a copy of a news article entitled “Shark Fin Soup: Eat it without guilt” (available here). Suzy asked me if the information in this article is correct, and how she should respond to her family members.

Though it is a few years old, I had never seen this article, and it’s a little shocking. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better example of distorting or ignoring science to promote a political agenda outside of Fox News. In short, Suzy, most of the information in here is either false or intentionally misleading.

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Supply Side Conservation Redux

can fisheries be saved?

The following was posted at the old website on January 5, 2010. It is reposted here as a response to the question “Why would you encourage people to consume any kind of seafood when bycatch is always an issue? Would it not be better simply to avoid any seafood whatsoever when we can live perfectly healthy lives without?” raised in Reader Mail: Aquariums, seafood, and my shark documentary. Old comments have be stripped but can be found at the original post here.

The Guilty Planet blog has a novel proposal for the New Year: Boycott Seafood. No, not just unsustainable seafood, not just environmentally destructive seafood, ALL seafood.

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