
Canada becomes first G20 country to ban trade in shark fins - Ultramanoid
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/20/business/canada-becomes-first-g20-country-ban-trade-shark-fins/
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Groxx
> _... Canada is the largest importer of shark fins outside of Asia._

Wow, TIL. Thank goodness then, that's likely a substantial cut.

Worth nothing tho that the USA, also a G20 country, has had arguably similar
bans since either 2000 or 2011:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_finning#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_finning#United_States)

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throwmex
Why is there a market for shark fins in Canada to begin with ?

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mikekchar
A long time back (i.e. when I was a kid, which was a _long_ time back), you
could get a visa to come to Canada if you invested a certain amount of money
into a company and ran that company for a few years (2 was the minimum, I
think). For relatively well off people in China this was a great opportunity
and basically the default thing to do was to open a Chinese restaurant. Lots
of these restaurants went under after the proprietors got permanent residence
status, but a suprisingly large number of them stuck around. My good friend's
father was one of those immigrants and he said that he had no interested at
all in running a restaurant, but after doing it for a few years he found that
he really enjoyed it. So historically there have been a lot of Chinese
restaurants in Canada and a large population of Chinese Canadians. Over time,
quite a few of these restaurants have gotten very good and the owners hire
famous chefs from China to come over and cook in them (at one time that was a
thing you could do... I'm not so sure any more). Because of this, famous
Chinese dishes started to appear in the restaurants. Again, when I was a kid,
most restaurants had 2 menus: one in Chinese and one in English. The English
one had "Chinese Canadian" food like sweet and sour pork balls in neon red
sauce, while the Chinese menu had actual Chinese cuisine. As Canadians became
more aware of this, they started preferring the Chinese menu. By the time I
was in University, everybody I knew wouldn't dream of ordering off the English
menu (I grew up in Winnipeg, which had a very good set of Chinese restaurants
at the time). Again, over time, Canadians started to appreciate fine Chinese
cuisine. One of the dishes that is popular is shark fin soup. That's basically
the long and the short of it as far as I can tell.

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acd
There is several species of shark which is critically endangered, many other
are listed as vulnerable. Please try also and help conservation by consuming
right, never eat shark fin soup.

List of threatened sharks species
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_threatened_sharks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_threatened_sharks)

~~~
dnhz
And I wonder how many sharks die simply as a result of being bycatch in
regular commercial fishing. People could be guilty of indirectly killing
sharks by eating fish like tuna.

> Throughout the 1990s, fishermen captured 12 million sharks and rays as
> bycatch every year, just in international waters alone.

[https://usa.oceana.org/blog/bycatch-spotlight-one-biggest-
is...](https://usa.oceana.org/blog/bycatch-spotlight-one-biggest-issues-
facing-sharks-today)

Even if some sort of release policy is implemented by fishermen, being hooked
by the gills, dragged up to 1 atmosphere pressure, and being thrown back into
the water is probably harmful to the sharks.

~~~
smackay
Agreed. However the trade in shark fins is very profitable and leads to
excesses and unspeakable cruelty. Just search for "sharks cut off fins" in
your favourite video site. Warning: the search results are graphic.

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spookware
This how you win elections now? Ban stuff?

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netwanderer3
Does shark fins actually have any real nutritional values or it's just pure
myth? It doesn't really matter though, population of some shark species has
decreased up to 80% in the last 50 years so this practice just has to stop.

~~~
raverbashing
Well, it has "real nutritional value", in the sense it provides calories, and
probably aminoacids but nothing out of the ordinary or with medical value

I'd suggest looking into the geopolitical issues behind the promotion of
"traditional Chinese medicine"

~~~
AFascistWorld
They love pangolins now.

~~~
TheRealPomax
Replace "now" with "too". They've been killing pangolins for countless
decades.

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JensRantil
> Canada becomes first G20 country to ban trade in shark fins

I'm not a native English speaker and was expecting s/in/with since I read you
are not allowed to use shark fins as transportation for trade.

~~~
taejo
"trade in shark fins" is correct, "shark-fin trade" would be too; "trade with
shark fins" would be weird. Compare the frequencies for a more common
commodity:
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=trade+in+wheat...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=trade+in+wheat%2Ctrade+of+wheat%2Cwheat+trade%2Ctrade+with+wheat&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ctrade%20in%20wheat%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ctrade%20of%20wheat%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cwheat%20trade%3B%2Cc0)

~~~
Doxin
"Trade with shark fins" sounds like you'd be using the shark fins as currency
to me, that is to say grammatically correct but generally nonsensical.

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modzu
"it’s an important [step] and sends a signal to the world that this practice
is wrong, has to be stopped, and Canada will not participate in the import of
these fins anymore.”

i don't get it.

why can't they be fished sustainably like anything else? why is it wrong to
eat a shark fin but ok to trawl fish, or to wear a jacket filled with down
plucked from a goose? this just seems like propaganda.

[https://www.oceana.ca/en/blog/how-seafood-caught-look-
fishin...](https://www.oceana.ca/en/blog/how-seafood-caught-look-fishing-gear-
types-canada)

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Kaiyou
I never really understood what looks to me like an obsession with preserving
endangered species. Maybe it does have to do with
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity_(social_psychology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity_\(social_psychology\))

~~~
moose462
You must remember that it is only the popular species. I'm from Portugal and
here sharks have another name and are eaten regularly under that name. If it
was called shark (the Portuguese equivalent to shark) there would probably be
a whole commotion about it.

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52-6F-62
Are they an endangered species? That is the point here. That and poaching them
_only_ for their fins.

~~~
richjdsmith
>That and poaching them only for their fins.

This is the part I personally find most disturbing. When you see videos of
shark finners slicing them off the shark while still in the water, leaving it
to bleed to death it's very disturbing.

If people were eating the meat as well, and they were being fished at a
sustainable level (so not endangered species), I'd have no issue with it.

~~~
Kaiyou
Why does the method of killing make a difference to you?

