Sharkfin Soup in Calgary is Banned!

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

??? are you joking?

So you cut off the fish's head. It dies. you cut off a shark's fin and you throw it back into the ocean to let it die a slow painful death. I think they drown because the way they get oxygen is by swimming.

So is it better to cut off a chicken's head or to cut off both it's wings and then let it run around still alive?

Yeah, and if you throw a lobster into a boiling pot of water, it also dies slowly. As do fish that have been caught, and put in a bucket to slowly starve of oxygen. Your empathy is selective.

[You Need a Thneed]

^Shark finning is bad for a combination of reasons. It's cruel to the shark, it's wasteful, and sharks are practically endangered.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Knalus

A lot of people who are really upset about shark finning are upset because they think they should be upset. I don't buy Gordon Ramsay's outrage for a second as legitimate and from the heart. Why is it an outrage to cut off the fin of a shark, but not an outrage to cut off the head of a fish? The outrage over the cruelty in bashing the brains out of a fish to kill it? The arguments regarding cruelty are disingenuous, in my opinion.

The waste, and the likelihood that the species will go extinct - that is an issue of REAL importance. Not crocodile tears cause a fish got hurt, and you heard about it. ALL the fish you eat did not want to be eaten, and if you asked them, it would all be cruel.

Two words: Biological complexity.

If we're more apt to care about one species more than another, it's because we believe they're exposed to a greater range of happiness and suffering, because of the relationship between biological complexity and the capacity for suffering. Of course, we could be wrong about this if we have misconstrued that relationship. But there's a reason we care more for the well-being of our fellow primates, dogs and cats, etc. versus a ladybug, or a fish. And we would place a shark in a higher tier than a lobster or a fish based on those same principles.

Now, having said that, I will say that if we are to continue making shark fin soup (which doesn't really seem to have any redeeming qualities where the fin itself is concerned), I would insist that the sharks should be killed humanely. The act of finning is not something I would see as acceptable.

Originally Posted by Knalus

Yeah, and if you throw a lobster into a boiling pot of water, it also dies slowly. As do fish that have been caught, and put in a bucket to slowly starve of oxygen. Your empathy is selective.

You're right, our empathy is selective. But it's selective for scientific and rational reasons.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Knalus

Yeah, and if you throw a lobster into a boiling pot of water, it also dies slowly. As do fish that have been caught, and put in a bucket to slowly starve of oxygen. Your empathy is selective.

Regarding the lobster, if you do it right the lobster dies within seconds of hitting the water. You need to put him into the water head first, and with a little bit of force. If you gingerly try to put him in tail first, he will die a slower death.

As for fish, I would argue that suffocation is a much more humane way to kill them than amputation.

The biggest issues with sharks is that they are somewhat endangered, and finning kills the shark while only using a small percentage of the animal. So it is not only barbaric but also wastefull and selfish.

[Lobotroth]

Put the lobster in the freezer before cooking.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Byrns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flake_%28fish%29

Once again, not an expert, but from what I remember from Biology and entymology classses:

Small sharks and younger sharks are usually edible. As sharks get older and bigger the meat becomes more inedible and the required cooking process becomes more honerous. As sharks age, their meat becomes more filled with Ammonia.

The catch is that the biggest fins are worth the most, but those come from the biggest sharks. Big shark carcasses are also a pain for boats to carry back to the dock, especially smaller boats.

You also got other issues with sharks being apex predators with relatively long life spans. Contaminants like mercury get concentrated in their meat.

All in all, shark meat is edible, just usually not that good. It can be good, but only under fairly limited circumstances. As a result, the value gets driven way down and it no longer becomes worth it for fishermen to transport the sharks back to port.

[Regulator75]

Now the Chinese Calgary Merchants Association is getting a petition together (obviously in favour).

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Op...683/story.html

[Bertuzzied]

Ok, i'm kind of an effing hypocrite but i had shark fin this weekend. My parents know the owners of New Harbour City and they are getting rid of all their stock before the ban. so they go and order a $500 bowl of it.... it was pretty damn good though...

It's still all the soup and that was amazing.

[chemgear]

^ Now where was that guy that got their panties in a bunch about large pictures and all.

[Bertuzzied]

Sorry. i'm sure if i took those photos with an iphone 5 they would be smaller.... hehe!

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

Ok, i'm kind of an effing hypocrite but i had shark fin this weekend.

Sorry. i'm sure if i took those photos with an iphone 5 they would be smaller.... hehe!

I don't care myself . . . Mmmmm, hypocrisy.

Half a grand though eh?

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I don't care myself . . . Mmmmm, hypocrisy.

Half a grand though eh?

I didn't pay and there is no way i would pay for it. I didn't even want to go but was forced to for Mooncake festival dinner. For the record, i had fake shark fin at the Richmond Night Market for $5/bowl and it was just as good!

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by fotze

Mmm bag o' salt soup with some shark fin.

umm i'm pretty sure its the msg that makes it sooo tasty!

[The Yen Man]

So is this ban like the Weed and Feed ban where places can't sell it, but if I buy it from say Edmonton, I can still cook it at home? Mmm, shark fin soup...

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

So is this ban like the Weed and Feed ban where places can't sell it, but if I buy it from say Edmonton, I can still cook it at home? Mmm, shark fin soup...

But if you buy it from Edmonton you would probably get like catfish fin... hahahaha

[Regulator75]

Looks like something I blew out of my nose.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Regulator75

Looks like something I blew out of my nose.

I'd eat that too, if it was in that yummy soup base.

[Ozy_Flame]

It's actually pretty good, but eating shark fins makes baby Jesus cry. Well, him and animal rights activists everywhere.

I will continue to eat frog legs though. If the city bans those, I'm going down in a blaze of glory.

[rabbit]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

From the Gordon Ramsay Wikipedia entry: In January 2011, while in Costa Rica, Ramsay was doused in petrol and held at gunpoint as he tried to uncover the dark world of illegal shark fin trading for a new TV show.[101] Ramsay stated: They told me they’d shoot me. At one, I managed to shake off the people keeping us away, ran up some stairs to a rooftop and looked down to see thousands of fins, drying on rooftops for as far as the eye could see. When I got back downstairs, they tipped a barrel of petrol over me. Back at the wharf, there were people pointing rifles at us to stop us filming. A van pulled up and these seedy characters made us stand against a wall. The police came and advised us to leave the country.

Whomever wrote that must have never actually watched Shark Bait. Ramsay was just trying to goose headlines and ratings with those claims which were mostly fabricated or blown way out of proportion. I'm shocked I tell, just shocked, that Wikipedia could be wrong...

First of all, you know this stuff is pretty off when he claims this happened in Costa Rica when the incidents he's exaggerating about really happened in Taiwan. He had cameras following him the entire time, and so we'd expect any such incidents to have been taped. But, then we never see any of the stuff that he claimed happened on screen which doesn't pass the smell test since that footage would have been ratings gold.

Instead, the cameras captured an increasingly paranoid and erratic Ramsay on the show. (I thought he must have been on something with the way he was acting). When he claims he was held at gunpoint or how he was lined up against a wall or how they pointed rifles at him, we don't see anything close to that. Instead, the only thing we see about guns is after Ramsay breaks and enters into a private building to gain access to the roof top where they're preparing shark fins. The Taiwanese woman is clearly bewildered by this foreign intruder who keeps shouting at her in English, so she calls somebody on the telephone in Chinese cause this is Taiwan and their native tongue isn't English. For all we know, she could just be calling the police to report this intruder. But, Ramsay freaks out about this phone call and says they better leave right now 'before they get shot'. So, the only guns or mention of guns we ever see on the show is when Ramsay himself brings it up...

Ramsay was so strangely paranoid throughout this documentary that its hard to seriously believe his claims about the danger on the rooftop. We also saw Ramsay freak out about a barking dog behind a gate, and claim they have to leave because the Taiwanese have released dogs to chase him even though that dog remains locked behind a gate. And, we also saw Ramsay freak out because a single Mercedes with blacked out windows passes by him, and Ramsay insinuates that the Mercedes must belong to a gangster. Ramsay would would later exaggerate that single car into a claim that multiple cars with blacked out windows tried to block him in.

The only semi-true thing is that happened was that somebody did dump a small bucket of liquid from the rooftop onto the ground after he left to shoo him away. But, he didn't get soaked, much less get a drop on him. And, it wasn't a barrel nor was it petrol. If you're going to dump some liquid to chase somebody away, you're going to grab the closest thing near you and why would you have a barrel or bucket of petrol on a rooftop?

[rabbit]

How come when I type my response and leave spaces to break it up into paragraphs, it gets posted into a single, super-long paragraph?