Federal Conservatives defeat motion to ban importing shark fins

[Thor]

Just watched Nat Geo most recent documentary on the massive slaughter of Elephants for their ivory, and shockingly its China that fuels the trade.

The Chinese people need to stop raping the earths wildlife to impress people with their ivory artwork and shark fin soup. Japan could do the same with their raping of the oceans.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Thor

Just watched Nat Geo most recent documentary on the massive slaughter of Elephants for their ivory, and shockingly its China that fuels the trade.

The Chinese people need to stop raping the earths wildlife to impress people with their ivory artwork and shark fin soup. Japan could do the same with their raping of the oceans.

Yeah and Norway needs to stop misrepresenting it's wolf population to justify a cull, and in turn appease a small rural community!

[pylon]

Interesting you bring those two animals up. Elephant poaching in China is punishable by death, and most countries it is a severe crime leading to massive prison time. So the Chinese poachers go outside their borders for ivory. In countries that have instituted such penalties though, the populations are thriving. After federal protection was brought in, wolf populations were taken of the endangered list and at least brought back to a survivable population, albeit much smaller.

This is the difference. No Elephants, would mean next to nothing ecologically. Now wolves be worse, and we would see over populations of some animals, but it would be manageable at least with culling. Take away Sharks, you have an earth changing ecological disaster of unprecedented proportions that would change the way the world eats, forever. I was picking the brain of one of the divers at the Maui Ocean centre about this exact topic, and he said the shark finning industry, is going to cause a global disaster long before global warming or any other current global threat. In just 10 years, these sick, disgusting, sadistic finners, and the equally disgusting people that eat this soup, have damaged shark populations more than any global disaster in 400 million years.

Soup.... could destroy our oceans and extinct one of the most fascinating creatures on the face of this earth inside of a century. Not a giant Asteroid. Not a Massive super volcano. F'ing SOUP. Just think about that for a second. How pathetic, is that? And how pathetic is anyone that chooses to support this practice?

[burn_this_city]

The most ridiculous part, it's flavorless, they like it for the texture.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by pylon

Interesting you bring those two animals up. Elephant poaching in China is punishable by death, and most countries it is a severe crime leading to massive prison time. So the Chinese poachers go outside their borders for ivory. In countries that have instituted such penalties though, the populations are thriving. After federal protection was brought in, wolf populations were taken of the endangered list and at least brought back to a survivable population, albeit much smaller.

Sorry but this is mostly untrue, your assertion that tough laws are stopping the slaughter in Africa is the biggest incorrect statement. I'm heading out for Easter dinner so I'll address this later.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by pylon

Interesting you bring those two animals up. Elephant poaching in China is punishable by death, and most countries it is a severe crime leading to massive prison time. So the Chinese poachers go outside their borders for ivory. In countries that have instituted such penalties though, the populations are thriving. After federal protection was brought in, wolf populations were taken of the endangered list and at least brought back to a survivable population, albeit much smaller.

This is the difference. No Elephants, would mean next to nothing ecologically. Now wolves be worse, and we would see over populations of some animals, but it would be manageable at least with culling. Take away Sharks, you have an earth changing ecological disaster of unprecedented proportions that would change the way the world eats, forever. I was picking the brain of one of the divers at the Maui Ocean centre about this exact topic, and he said the shark finning industry, is going to cause a global disaster long before global warming or any other current global threat. In just 10 years, these sick, disgusting, sadistic finners, and the equally disgusting people that eat this soup, have damaged shark populations more than any global disaster in 400 million years.

Soup.... could destroy our oceans and extinct one of the most fascinating creatures on the face of this earth inside of a century. Not a giant Asteroid. Not a Massive super volcano. F'ing SOUP. Just think about that for a second. How pathetic, is that? And how pathetic is anyone that chooses to support this practice?

Not that I disagree with you, my feeling on the practice have already been shown in here, and I do agree that no sharks would cause much harm to the environment due to losing an apex predator and what goes along with it. But what exactly would make it worse than global warming or even an asteroid? Just asking, cause while I have heard (and understand to a point) that it would be a problem, I don't know why it would be truly disastrous.

Just asking out loud cause I don't know.

[Bobblehead]

This whole discussion is an example of of the economic principle Tragedy of the Commons.

the tragedy of the commons is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests.

In other words, it makes perfect sense for each individual person to decide to have shark fin soup - it is only one shark out of an entire population - but if everyone acted individually the entire population would soon be wiped out. The individual gets all the benefit (they get the soup) and everyone shares the cost (no one else can ever "use" that shark). If everyone acts in their own best interests eventually everyone is worse off.

There has been huge amounts of study on things like this, but there are rarely any easy solutions.

In absence of enlightened self-interest, some form of authority or federation is needed to solve the collective action problem. In a typical example, governmental regulations can limit the amount of a common good available for use by any individual. Permit systems for extractive economic activities including mining, fishing, hunting, livestock raising and timber extraction are examples of this approach. Similarly, limits to pollution are examples of governmental intervention on behalf of the commons. Alternatively, resource users themselves can cooperate to conserve the resource in the name of mutual benefit.