WildAid Tiger Claw Champion

[GeneChing]

TCE KungFuMagazine.com Championship X Photos by Kevin Ho

This first batch is WildAid & Ku Yu Cheung Bak Sil Lum Championship competitors.

THREADS
10th Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship - May 19-20 2018, San Jose CA
WildAid Tiger Claw Championship
Ku Yu Cheung Bak Sil Lum Championship

[GeneChing]

WILDAID TIGER CLAW CHAMPIONS (虎爪精英盃)
Tiger Claw Champion: Lei Fan - Kung Fu Dragon USA, Pleasanton CA
Teen Tiger Champion: Naoki Tang - Elite Kung Fu, Fremont CA
Tiger Cub Champion: Mariella Brayton - US Wushu Center, Portland OR

[GeneChing]

THREADS:
10th Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion

[GeneChing]

THREADS:
10th Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion

[GeneChing]

THREADS:
10th Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion

[GeneChing]

[GeneChing]

There's some nice short vids behind the link.

China’s push to export traditional medicine may doom the magical pangolin
By Simon Denyer
July 21

In a rescue center, the pangolin slowly wakes and uncurls, sniffing out a nighttime feast of ants’ eggs, then lapping it up with its implausibly long tongue. One of 74 pangolins rescued from the back of a truck in Vietnam in April, its survival has defied the odds.

This almost mystical creature, looking like a cross between an anteater and an armadillo but unrelated to either, is the world’s most trafficked mammal: A million of them are thought to have been poached from the wild in just a decade.

Already almost wiped out in China, the pangolin is fast disappearing from the jungles of the rest of Asia and, increasingly, from Africa to supply China’s booming market in traditional medicine.

Now, as China pushes to export traditional medicine around the world under the umbrella of its Belt and Road investment plan, many wildlife experts fear that the animal faces extinction — unless something changes very soon.

“Traditional Chinese medicine should be a healing force for good, but not at the expense of animal cruelty or the extinction of species,” said Iris Ho, wildlife program manager at Humane Society International.

China’s decision to ban the ivory trade at the end of last year gave hope to those battling elephant poaching, “but the real litmus test lies within China’s action — or lack of action — in pangolin conservation,” Ho said.

The air of mystery attaching to the reclusive pangolin has been its downfall, sparking an unjustified belief that its scales have magical medicinal properties. In hospitals and pharmacies across China and Vietnam, powder made from pangolin scales is prescribed for an impossibly wide range of ailments, including rheumatism, wound infections, skin disorders, coronary heart disease and even cancer.

Mothers take powdered pangolin scales to help them lactate, while men drink pangolin blood or consume fetuses in the belief that this will make them more virile.


A woman shops on a Hong Kong street popular for dried foods used in traditional Chinese medicine and dishes including deep-fried scales of endangered pangolins. (Dale de La Rey/AFP/Getty Images)

The use of pangolins in Chinese medicine dates back thousands of years. A 16th-century document recommends eating their scales to reduce swelling, invigorate blood circulation and promote lactation. A 1938 article in Nature suggests they were used to treat malaria, deafness, “hysterical crying” in children and women possessed by “devils and ogres.”

In fact, the scales are made of keratin, a fibrous protein that is the main ingredient of hair, feathers, claws and hoofs throughout the animal kingdom; patients might as well chew their own fingernails.

Pangolins are also served at the dinner table, despite a ban on pangolin meat in China imposed during the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic amid fears that exotic meats could spread disease.

The pangolin is the world’s most trafficked mammal: A million of them are thought to have been poached from the wild in just a decade. (Paul Hilton for WildAid)

In late 2016, all eight species of pangolin were listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), making all international trade in them illegal. But that does not obligate China or Vietnam to curb domestic trade — except to the extent that such trade now relies mostly on sources abroad.

Customs officials make regular seizures at China’s ports, but the very size of those captures makes depressing reading: In the southern city of Shenzhen, 13 tons of scales were seized in November alone, representing tens of thousands of slaughtered pangolins.

Nocturnal and solitary, the pangolin has an effective defense against most predators — even lions can’t work out what to do when the animal rolls up into an armored ball. Its English name comes from the Malay word “pengguling,” which means rolling ball; its Chinese name, chuanshanjia, refers to its supposed ability to “bore through mountains,” a reference to the powerful claws that dig into anthills and termite mounds before that sticky tongue gets to work.

Pangolin mothers carry their young on their backs for the first three months and curl up around the babies if attacked until the young ones’ scales are sufficiently hard.

But the sensitive pangolin adapts poorly to captivity, almost always dying in a few months or years because of stress, disease or digestive problems without reproducing. Secretive pangolin “farms” in China are basically fronts for trafficking operations, experts say.

Conservation groups are trying to reduce demand by educating people about the dangers facing the pangolin and better ways to treat human disease than by consuming animal keratin.


A veterinarian with Save Vietnam’s Wildlife holds an injured pangolin. The false belief that pangolin scales and other parts have magical medicinal properties has fueled a trade that threatens the creature’s survival. (Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images)

The China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, a nonprofit group, has publicly exposed people selling or consuming pangolin meat, including a Chinese businessman who boasted online of enjoying “pangolin blood fried rice” on a trip to Vietnam. After a backlash on social media, he was sacked.

WildAid, whose use of Chinese celebrities to curb demand for ivory and shark fin soup has achieved considerable success, is trying the same approach for pangolins, enlisting the actors Jackie Chan and Angelababy in China and former Miss Universe Pham Huong in Vietnam to front publicity campaigns. It is also trying to persuade traditional-medicine practitioners to use alternative treatments.

Almost wiped out in China, the pangolin is disappearing from the jungles of Asia and also from Africa, to supply China’s traditional medicine boom. (Paul Hilton for WildAid)

Peter Knights, WildAid’s founder, argues that traditional Chinese medicine needs to stop using endangered wildlife products if it wants to become more accepted globally.

“If you want to expand it, you’ve got to clean it up,” he says, citing as precedents the removal of tiger bone and rhinoceros horn from China’s list of approved medicinal ingredients.

But surveys by the Aita Foundation and Humane Society International and by the U.S. Agency for International Development Wildlife Asia project suggest that the message is not yet getting through to the small but significant percentage of Chinese who still consume pangolin products.

Changing minds will not be easy as long as China’s government promotes the “medicinal” use of pangolin scales. Authorities claim to have a stockpile from which they supply hospitals and pharmacies with 26 tons of scales every year but offer no transparency about that process, effectively legitimizing the entire smuggling trade.

China also sparked controversy at a recent CITES meeting by arguing that it should have the right to purchase stockpiles of scales from other countries that were amassed before the Appendix I listing, an interpretation of the convention’s rules not shared by the United States or many other nations.

Meanwhile, on Vietnam’s border with China, powerful criminal gangs control the trafficking of people, drugs and wildlife products, bribing officials to turn a blind eye.

Scott Roberton of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Vietnam says it is hard to convince Asian governments of the importance of saving pangolins, as compared to elephants, rhinos and tigers. He hopes to gain traction by stressing how pangolin trafficking is caught up with other forms of transnational crime and by highlighting the public-health risks of the trade.

But the odds are steep. China’s traditional-medicine authorities have unveiled an ambitious plan to expand along the Belt and Road trade routes, with 57 international cooperation projects due to get underway this year.

And reports of Chinese companies’ trying to open pangolin “farms” in Africa, and of scales being prescribed by Chinese doctors in places as far-flung as South Africa and the United States, have intensified conservationists’ fears.

Nguyen Van Thai, who founded Save Vietnam’s Wildlife and runs the rescue center in Cuc Phuong National Park, says there is still no good strategy for curbing demand for scales or convincing the Chinese government that its support for the pangolin trade could damage its global reputation.

“China wants to show its power,” he said. “The more pressure you put on them, the more they resist.”

Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to this report.

THREADS
Pangolins
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion

[GeneChing]

Consider alternatives to pangolin scales, traditional Chinese medicine professors urge at conservation conference in Hong Kong
HKU academic warns that illegal vendors exaggerate the effectiveness of the scales for treating various conditions
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 06 September, 2018, 1:22pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 06 September, 2018, 9:09pm
Karen Zhang
https://twitter.com/karenised
karen.zhang@scmp.com



There are alternatives to pangolin scales that have similar medicinal qualities, Chinese medicine professors said, urging the public not to believe the exaggerated effects touted by illegal vendors.

Their call, made at an international conservation conference on Wednesday, came as the Post reported that the amount seized in the first seven months of this year had reached a five-year high, with most of the contraband being sourced from Africa.

At the event, traditional Chinese medicine academics, pangolin experts and conservationists from mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Africa gathered at the University of Hong Kong to discuss how to protect the highly trafficked mammals.

The scales, comprising mainly keratin and believed to have high medicinal value, were found to be a major reason behind the poaching of the animals, whose meat is also seen as a delicacy. There is no scientific evidence showing that pangolin scales are effective as a treatment.

“Many herbal medicines have very similar functions to pangolin scales,” said Professor Lao Lixing, director of HKU’s School of Chinese Medicine, during the conference organised by international conservation group WildAid.

According to Lao, in Chinese medicine, it usually takes between five and nine grams of processed scales per dose, along with supplementary materials, to treat conditions such as breast milk stoppage, rheumatoid arthritis, sores and furuncles.

He explained that the industry often associated the medical qualities of an ingredient with the animal’s behaviour.

“[Pangolins] can go through the soil, so it’s believed that [their scales] can go through the vessels,” Lao said, referring to the meridian system, through which life energy flows in traditional Chinese medicine.


Pangolins in Indonesia are at risk of extinction thanks to an illicit trade that sees thousands of them trafficked each year. Photo: AFP

Lao listed six substitutes including cowherb seeds, known in Chinese as wang bu liu xing, which could be used for promoting milk secretion. Earthworms, known as di long, can also dispel “heatiness” and expel wind from the body.

“There are so many [substitutes] if you look at the textbook of Chinese medicine. I just named a few here,” he said.

Lao called on the Chinese government to educate the public about the medical properties of pangolin scales, as he feared that some people might think the products must be effective if they were banned. The effects were often exaggerated by illegal vendors, he said.

Dr Feng Yibin, associate director at the same school, said the institution’s teachers always made it clear to students that the species were endangered and should not be used, although students were told about their medicinal value.

On the mainland, raw pangolin scales can be obtained only at designated hospitals and from approved pharmaceutical companies, while legally sold processed scales must display a special label issued by the government.

The Chinese government has supported captive breeding as a solution by granting approval to some companies to raise pangolins. International experts at in the conference however questioned the feasibility of this approach.


Their scales, believed to have high medicinal value, were found to be a major reason behind the poaching of pangolins. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Dr Helen Nash, vice-chairwoman of the pangolin specialist group under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission, cited an IUCN study stating that pangolin farming was not financially viable and that many animals had died in captivity.

Nash said that although the success rate of raising pangolins in captivity was a lot higher than it used to be, the cost of doing so – about US$7,000 – could not be covered by the animal’s market value. She added that zoos in Singapore and Taipei had tried for decades to raise pangolins but only managed to raise a handful. There was currently no commercial data for assessment, she said.

WildAid CEO Peter Knights voiced concern that commercial farming would become an excuse for encouraging the wildlife trade as it was too expensive, slow and suffered from very high mortality.

Dr Sun Quanhui, a senior scientific adviser from World Animal Protection, cited a 2010 survey that found most consumers were willing to buy wild bear bile at a higher price despite being given three alternatives, including bile from farmed bears.

He added that using wildlife would be an obstacle to Chinese medicine going global as it left a negative impression and would face restrictions imposed by international players.

According to WildAid, Chinese pangolins have disappeared from most of their habitats, with their population having fallen by more than 94 per cent since the 1960s. The demand then shifted towards the neighbouring Sunda pangolin, which in turn suffered an 80 per cent decline over the last 21 years.

THREADS:
Pangolins
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion

[GeneChing]

WILDAID Tiger Claw Champions

FALL 2018

[GeneChing]

Jackie Chan's 'Kung Fu Pangolins' bag Shorty nomination
Updated Oct. 26, 2018, 3:10 p.m. | By The Scenic Drive with Rian

International kung fu superstar Jackie Chan is doing his part to protect the endangered pangolin, and the Shorty Social Good Awards panel is taking notice.


Facebook screenshot

Pangolins are the most trafficked wild mammal in the world and are regarded as an endangered species. The anteaters have tough scales, which poachers sell along with meat from the pangolin's body.

In 2017, American environmental organisation WildAid enlisted the help of international kung fu superstar Jackie Chan in creating a public service announcement about protecting pangolins. In it, Chan trains three pangolins to protect themselves by fighting back.

The PSA, which carries the tagline "It takes just one move to protect pangolins", was viewed 13 million times on social media. The campaign has now been named as a finalist in the Shorty Social Good Awards.
The impression left by the PSA was positive, with Shorty reporting notable changes in people's attitudes towards the buying and selling of pangolin products since seeing Jackie Chan's message.

WildAid's mission is to end illegal wildlife trade through public awareness campaigns. It's a noble cause that must be fought for - and it certainly helps to have a famous face to help it along. Jackie Chan exudes his trademark humour, charm and agility as he teaches the animals how to protect themselves, making the PSA as fun to watch as it is educational.

Chan has previously shown his concern for preserving wildlife species in a video aimed at curbing rhino poaching called "Say No", which was shot with the African Wildlife Foundation.

Image: WildAid

The PSA was posted here last year.

Jackie Charity work - Pangolins & WildAid

[GeneChing]

I used to love shark fin soup but stopped eating it after meeting Peter Benchley (author of Jaws) at an ACAP event. ACAP was a precursor to my work with WildAid - I wrote about that in a former TC Media publication, World of Martial Arts (see the NOV+DEC 98 issue)

Shark fin: Cathay Pacific among major Hong Kong firms uniting in pledge to end global trade
Four Seasons Hotel, Shangri-La Group, Conrad Hong Kong and Star Ferry Company some of the big names promising to put pressure on other businesses
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 03 November, 2018, 8:04am
UPDATED : Saturday, 03 November, 2018, 11:11am
David Vetter
david.vetter@scmp.com



Major corporations across five industries in Hong Kong on Friday signed a pledge to put an end to the global trade in shark fin.

Airline Cathay Pacific was joined by businesses ranging from hotels to advertisers in committing to the Global Shark Pledge, an initiative by wildlife protection organisation WildAid.

Hong Kong is a major hub for the trade. As much as 50 per cent of global supply passes through the city, much of it on its way to mainland China.

WildAid says the industry relies on the killing of up to 73 million sharks every year.

Other big names signing the pledge included the Four Seasons Hotel, Shangri-La Group, Conrad Hong Kong, and The Star Ferry Company.


Participants and ambassadors spread the message for WildAid’s Global Shark Pledge on Friday. Photo: Edward Wong

The firms all promised not to use or transport shark fin and to put pressure on other businesses to follow suit.

Activism has helped slash demand for shark fin in China, the world’s biggest consumer, by more than half since 2011, WildAid said. Many large restaurant chains have stopped serving it or have replaced the ingredient with substitutes at traditional Chinese banquets.

“We’ve been running an advertising campaign for a decade now to encourage people in Hong Kong not to buy it. But then we moved on to the airlines and container shipping companies,” said Alex Hofford, a WildAid campaigner.

The result has been 45 airlines – including Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay – refusing to transport shark fin as cargo.

Conservation group WWF says Hong Kong shark fin imports dropped by half between 2007 and 2017.

“A critical mass has formed,” Hofford said. “We’ve lobbied the business sector – now it’s time for them to carry our message forward.”


Claudio Rossi (left), executive chef at Conrad Hong Kong, pictured here with Four Seasons executive chef Chan Yan-tak, said shark fin was completely unnecessary as a culinary ingredient. Photo: Edward Wong

Claudio Rossi, executive chef at Conrad Hong Kong, said shark fin was completely unnecessary as a culinary ingredient.

“There are many alternatives, and in the past 10 years I’ve seen a lot of improvement. Many five-star hotels have stopped using shark fin. With this inspiration and drive, the smaller restaurants can follow our lead,” he said.

Andy Chan, senior director of food and beverage for the Shangri-La Group, said: “We have an obligation as a company to help customers make sustainable food choices. We stopped serving shark fin because it was the right thing to do.”

Last month fast-food chain Maxim’s, Hong Kong’s largest restaurant business, said it would remove all shark fin products from menus by 2020.

Hofford said WildAid now had its sights on other major chains such as Fulum, which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

“The Maxim’s decision really sent shock waves up the shark fin supply chain, so we’re calling on Fulum to sign our pledge because they’re the second biggest restaurant group,” he said. “It would be great if they were the second domino to fall.”

[GeneChing]

I just got invited to a tasting at the winery next week. Perhaps all the WildAid supporters did. That's about a 2-hour ride from the office here. Very tempting.

Yao Family Wines



Trade
2015 Napa Crest WildAid Limited Edition Napa Valley Red Wine
Portion of the proceeds goes to benefit WildAid



$75.00

For the second year, Yao Family Wines is honored to produce in conjunction with WildAid this Limited Edition bottling of our 2015 Napa Crest Red Wine. Rated 94-points by James Suckling, this delicious blend of Cabernet, Merlot and Petit Verdot will not only grace your table or cellar, but will help with WildAid's mission, as a portion of the sale proceeds go to help end the illegal wildlife trade. For over a decade, Yao Ming has worked diligently with WildAid to end the killing of sharks, elephants, Rhinos and tigers. Now, you can help, too!

This year's bottling will be limited to 50 cases of each varietal.

Wine Specs
Vintage 2015
Varietal Red Blend
Appellation Napa Valley
Alcohol %14.5

[GeneChing]

FEBRUARY 3, 2019 / 7:14 PM / UPDATED 13 HOURS AGO
Stop pigging out and save the planet, Chinese told ahead of Lunar New Year
Beh Lih Yi
3 MIN READ



KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As Chinese people celebrate the new Year of the Pig this week, environmental campaigners are urging them to eat less pork and help save the planet.

Men perform a dragon dance called Liong ahead of the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year during the Grebeg Suro ceremony in Solo, Central Java province, Indonesia, February 3, 2019 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Antara Foto/Mohammad Ayudha/via REUTERS. A
China consumes more meat than any other country and accounts for half the world’s consumption of pork, which is used in everything from dumplings and stir-fries to hotpots.

That has helped make it the world’s biggest emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases - according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock are responsible for about 14.5 percent of global emissions.

“Chinese emissions can be reduced by almost 10 percent in the next decade if Chinese people just ate half as much meat,” said Jen Leung, China climate director at the U.S.-based charity WildAid.

“So just try eating a little less pork in honor of a healthy Year of the Pig,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Twelve animals make up the traditional Chinese zodiac and this week marks the transition from year of the dog to year of the pig.

The week-long holiday starts on starts on Monday, the eve of the new year, and is the most important in the Chinese calendar, when millions of people travel home.

Many restaurants have special menus to mark the festival, which is celebrated by Chinese communities around the world.

In Hong Kong, famous for its dim sum and barbeque pork, one company is partnering with restaurants to promote Lunar New Year dishes cooked with its “vegan pork” made with ingredients including soybeans and peas.

“Traditional belief dictates that we should not eat the same animal during their year in order to bring good luck - so pig year don’t eat pork,” said Alvin Lee, marketing manager at Green Monday, a social enterprise that promotes sustainable living.

“But more importantly it’s to address the issue of food safety and to mitigate climate change,” he said, referring to a recent outbreak of deadly African swine fever on pig farms in China.

On Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, animal rights group PETA has launched a campaign to honor the “playful” animal with the hashtag #PigYearDontEatThem.

“Animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transportation systems combined,” PETA Asia campaigner Jason Baker said.

China issued dietary guidelines in 2016 recommending people halve their meat consumption - a move lauded by environmentalists as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as boosting public health.

Experts said people were unlikely to give up on their pork dumplings any time soon in China, where meat is still associated with wealth and status.

“It’s quite challenging because culturally there are quite a lot of values attached to being able to eat meat,” Beau Damen, an expert on climate change at the FAO in Bangkok, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“But one thing consumers do have to keep in mind is that choices about what we eat do have a direct impact on the environment,” he warned.

Reporting by Beh Lih Yi @behlihyi; Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit news.trust.org

Bacon!!!!!!
Year of the Pig 2019
WildAid

[GeneChing]

Toxic delicacy of shark fin causes ecosystem chaos, and consumers are pushing back
By Marian Liu, CNN

Updated 9:55 PM ET, Mon February 4, 2019


Photos: Shark fin in Hong Kong
The bigger the fin and the thicker the veining, the more expensive it is, merchants said.

Hong Kong (CNN)Adeline Chan's nose crinkled at the market's pungent, briny smell.
Chan and her mother were once regulars at Hong Kong's Dried Seafood Market, in Sheung Wan, where endless stalls display plastic bins stuffed with various forms of dried shark fin.
"We don't need shark fins for ourselves, but sharks need their fins," said Chan, now a vegan. "I stopped consuming shark fin soup four years ago after learning what sharks had to go through before a bowl of shark fin soup is served."


Adeline Chan used to eat shark fin.

But fins continue to be popular at these stores, along with other delicacies such as sea cucumbers, scallops and abalone.
According to Hong Kong's tourism board, this seafood market has been around for at least 50 years, but the dried seafood trade can be traced to the 1860s, said Sidney Cheung, director of the Centre for Cultural Heritage Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Shark fin has long been a status symbol at Chinese dinners, particularly for wedding banquets.
As much as half of the global supply has been found to pass through Hong Kong, the second-highest consumer of seafood in Asia at 71.8 kilograms (158 pounds) per person per year. This is more than three times the global average, according of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
And on Chinese New Year, many family dinners will include shark fin. Last year, the Hong Kong Shark Foundation found that over 80% of 291 Chinese New Year menus in Hong Kong included these dishes.

A culture of fins

For many Chinese families, culture dictates the consumption of shark fin.
"There was an old saying in Hong Kong in the 1970s: 'To stir shark fin with rice.' It was used to describe the lifestyle of the wealthy, implying that they were rich enough to afford shark fin on a daily basis," said Tracy Tsang, manager of WWF-Hong Kong's Footprint program.
"Today, the older generation still considers serving shark fin to their guests during banquets a sign of hospitality."
Many people in China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Macau and Vietnam all consume shark fin -- primarily the Chinese population.
"The concept of 'no fin, no feast' is still deeply rooted in many people's minds," said Bowie Wu Fung, an 86-year-old Hong Kong actor who now speaks for WildAid, appearing on billboards in Hong Kong against shark fin consumption.
Fung hopes to reach the older generation, who constitute the bulk of the buyers at Hong Kong's Dried Seafood Market.


The bigger the fin and the thicker the veining, the more expensive shark fin is, according to store owners.

"Shark's fin is one of the 'four treasures' of Chinese dried seafood, along with fish maw, dried abalone and sea cucumber," said Daisann McLane, director of the gourmet food tour company Little Adventures in Hong Kong. "All four are expensive products that are valued for their rarity and also for their texture."
The bigger the fin and the thicker the veining, the more expensive it is, store clerks at Hong Kong's Dried Seafood Market said.
Prices can range from $90 Hong Kong dollars (about $12) for 600 grams (1.3 pounds) for small shredded pieces to $7,000 Hong Kong dollars (around $930) for 600 grams. According to a report released in 2016 by the conservation organization Traffic, shark fin prices can range from $99 to $591 per kilogram in Hong Kong.
On the lower end, a shark fin set lunch can cost $80 Hong Kong dollars to 90 Hong Kong dollars ($11 to $12) at Chinese restaurants, while some upscale places charge up to $1,200 Hong Kong dollars ( $160) for a bowl of shark fin soup, Tsang said.

'A shark trading hub'

More than 1 million tons of shark are caught each year, according to a 2018 study in Marine Policy, which named Hong Kong as the "world's biggest shark trading hub" where shark fin imports have doubled since 1960.


Over 18 thousand shark fins were estimated to be drying on a Hong Kong rooftop.

Nearly 60% of the world's shark species are threatened, the highest proportion among all vertebrate groups, and the populations of some species, such as hammerhead and oceanic whitetip, have declined by more than 90% in recent years due to the shark fin soup trade, according to the study.
DNA studies have further revealed that one-third of the shark species represented on the Hong Kong retail market may be threatened with extinction.
"Sharks are in crisis," said Andy Cornish, leader of WWF's Global Shark and Ray Initiative. "The demand for shark fin in East and Southeast Asia and for shark meat in other parts of the world are the major drivers for the overfishing of sharks. This is, by far, the biggest cause of the shark population decline. Currently, 100% of shark fin sold in Hong Kong is from unsustainable and/or untraceable sources."


Shark fin with skin, during the drying process, taken in Hong Kong, near Sheung Wan.

Hong Kong customs seized at least 5 metric tons of illegal fins between 2014 and July 2018. From January to October 2018, there were six smuggling cases of endangered species of shark fins with seizure, involving a total of 236 kilograms (520 pounds) of dried shark fins, according to Hong Kong's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.
But continued interest is putting the environment -- and humans -- at risk.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Ecosystem chaos

When a shark's fin is sliced off, the animal dies, said Yvonne Sadovy, lead author of the Marine Policy study and a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Hong Kong.
"It cannot move, feed or swim, so it just starves to death on the sea bottom. Maybe it is like cutting the wings off a flying plane: The plane will be destroyed," she said.
Sharks need their fins for steering, balancing and, for some, breathing.


A replacement for Shark Fin Soup from Four Seasons, Double Boiled Maitake Mushroom soup.

"There are sharks that must continue swimming to be able to breathe, as they rely on the forward motion to keep water passing through their gill slits and get oxygen," said Stan Shea, marine program director for the Bloom Association Hong Kong, a nonprofit that works to preserve the marine environment.
When their fins are cut off, "they are likely to die of suffocation, as they are no longer able to breathe by swimming forwards. (For others), they are unlikely to suffocate but die either by starvation or watching as other animals 'consume' them alive."
In addition, as a predator at the top of the food chain, sharksa are critical to maintaining balance in the ecosystem, Shea said. Its loss could cause "behavioral change" and "chaos."
For example, when numbers of sharks decrease, their prey will increase and overeat the next level on the food chain, which is why cownose rays wiped out the scallop population in North Carolina, Sadovy said.
"Most sharks are important predators and therefore can play key roles in keeping ecosystems functioning. Depletion of sharks is expected to have negative effects on populations of prey species, many of which may be also be sharks, or rays," said Nick Dulvy, co-chairman of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Shark Specialist Group.

'Why the heck would you eat it?'

Eating shark meat could be harmful to humans, too.
Studies have found that sharks accumulate marine toxins, as long-lived predators at the top of the food chain. The levels of these toxins, including mercury, lead and arsenic, exceed recommended dietary levels, according to articles in Marine Pollution Bulletin.
Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety warned against the consumption of predatory fish species after finding a sample from a supermarket that contained a level of mercury eight times the permissible limit in 2017.


Shark fin is easily accessible in Hong Kong at the Dried Food Market.

"The main food safety concern for shark fin/meat and other large predatory fish is the accumulation of mercury, especially methylmercury," the center said in a statement.
"Methylmercury is the most toxic form of mercury affecting the nervous system, particularly the developing brain. At high levels, mercury can affect fetal brain development, and affect vision, hearing, muscle coordination and memory in adults."
In 2016, WildAid tested samples of raw shark fin samples from Hong Kong and Taiwan's dried seafood markets and found that all contained above the permissible amounts for arsenic and more than half exceeded levels for cadmium, a known carcinogen.
"If something damages your brain, why ... would you eat it?" asked Deborah Mash, professor of neurology at the University of Miami. "There's also no good evidence for health benefits."
A 2016 study by Mash found a cyanobacterial toxin in sharks fins linked to the neurodegenerative diseases Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often called ALS.
Analyzing 55 sharks across 10 species from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, her team found that the majority contained the cyanobacterial toxin β-N-methylamino-l-alanine, together with another environmental toxin -- methylmercury -- which is known to accumulate in sharks.
Traditional Chinese medicine may also have no need for shark fins.
"To my knowledge, shark fin is never a part of Chinese medicine practice," said Professor Lixing Lao, director of the School of Chinese Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. "Chinese medicine community is nowadays very much aware of protection of endangered species to be used in the Chinese medicine practice."
Besides, "shark fins have no taste on their own. It barely offers a crunchy texture when you bite into it," said executive chef Chan Yan Tak, the first Chinese chef to get three Michelin stars, at the Four Seasons in Hong Kong, which stopped serving shark fin in 2011. "The flavor comes from the soup: a superior stock that is boiled for eight hours with Yunnan ham, chicken and pork ribs."
Increasingly, public attitudes toward shark fin are turning.

Pushback from big voices

According to parallel studies in 2009 and 2014, consumption of shark fin in the last year surveyed in Hong Kong went down from more than 70% to less than 45%.
In contrast, the acceptability of excluding shark fin soup from weddings went up from around 78% to 92%, according to studies by the marine environment nonprofit Bloom Association of Hong Kong.


Dried shark fin are easily accessibly in Hong Kong at the Dried Seafood Market.

WildAid and WWF-Hong Kong estimate that more than 18,000 hotels, 44 international airlines and 17 of the 19 largest container shipping lines have stopped serving shark fin and banned it from cargo, affecting close to three-quarters of global shipments. The volume of shark fin imported into Hong Kong has also dropped by half, from 10,210 metric tons in 2007 to 4,979 metric tons in 2017, according to Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department.
"It was a big challenge initially, getting customers to accept our shark fin policy," said Andy Chan, senior director of food and beverage for Shangri-La Hotels & Restaurants, which took shark fin off its menus in 2010. "We accepted that it would mean a substantial cut for our banqueting business. We initiated the policy because it was the right thing to do. We recognized that as a species, sharks are threatened with extinction, and if this happens, it would put the health of our oceans and fisheries at risk."
Joining Shangri-La in pledging to stop the sale of shark fin are Cathay Pacific, Four Seasons and, most recently, the popular Hong Kong restaurant chain Maxim's, by 2020. The Four Seasons and some others offer a vegan version of the soup.
"As more hotels and restaurants join together in this pledge, we send a strong signal to our community and can together help to reshape dining concepts around sustainability," Tak said.
WWF and WildAid are working to persuade more companies to make the pledge against shark fin. Recently, WildAid campaigner Alex Hofford talked to the Fulum Group, one of the largest Hong Kong chains with more than 80 restaurants, about reviewing its policies.
Citing the nonprofit's motto, Hofford said, "when the buying stops, the killing can, too."

I used to love shark fin soup but I stopped eating it after I met Peter Benchley working for ACAP under Jackie Chan (I wrote about that back in the World of Martial Arts issue NOV+DEC 98, back when I was still a freelancer).

Threads:
WildAid Tiger Claw Champion
Banning Shark Fin Soup