Great White Sharks now considered endangered (in California, anyway)

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**MeanGreenStompa**

What is it with the far eastern countries finding the least ecologically suitable things to eat or use as impotence remedies.

"Wow, that tiger burger and tamarin fries was awesome, I'm off to the toilet to do a few lines of rhino horn!"

**MeanGreenStompa**

DutchKillsRambo wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
What is it with the far eastern countries finding the least ecologically suitable things to eat or use as impotence remedies.

"Wow, that tiger burger and tamarin fries was awesome, I'm off to the toilet to do a few lines of rhino horn!"

"Yep. In fact, taking a trait that exists among a portion of a population and then extending it as a descriptor to the whole population is pretty much what racism is. " Quote from sebster.

Yet I got a warning.

Except that between Chinese herbal medicines, shark fin soup and Japanese tastes for rare or exotic seafoods, (and other countries with a culture of these 'medicines' or 'delicacies' ) many species are being pushed to extinction. I make absolutely no comment on someone's race and every criticism based on the trends or cultural insistence on pushing groups of animals into annilihation purely for rarified tastes or non-scientific 'medicines'. I can criticize the culture without attacking the race of people who live there.

You are, of course, welcome to report my comment to a mod for assessment, but it was not racism.

**MeanGreenStompa**

DutchKillsRambo wrote:

Oh I find nothing wrong with your comment, in fact I wholeheartedly agree. It's disgusting what they do to animals in the name of "medicine". Rather I was just pointing out a double standard. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to explain how I'm wrong.

On Topic did you catch the PBS documentary on the ivory trade in China just the other night? I left absolutely disgusted after watching it.

No, I can't stand watching that stuff any more. It just drives me insane.

Watching what's happening day after day to species, to the planet, to our future... It's the prime reason Mrs S and I decided to not have kids, I wouldn't want to bring a child into this world, we're thinking even if a pandemic doesn't sweep the human race soon, then it's going to take a nosedive in the next 50 years for everyone anyway, given the rate of population expansion and we'd rather not subject a new human to it.

I'm hoping she and I are dead and buried when it happens, whatever 'it' is going to be...

**MeanGreenStompa**

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

Well, as someone from China myself . . .

1- Most herbal medicines will not have tiger willy or things in them. It's why they're called herbal medicines. They have herbs. Few medicines will have animal parts in them.
2- Shark Fin soup is not something that we'll eat all the time. It's eaten on a special occasion. Granted, one billion people eating it, on average, less than once every two years maximum (and many probably do not even do that, I for one haven't had it in about eight years, plus it's very expensive compared to, say, Char Siu Fan) does equal a lot of dead sharks, but let's put things into perspective - it's not something that everyone will eat a lot, and it's a consequence of Chinese overpopulation.
3- Some Japanese do like their exotic seafoods, but like Chinese people eating Shark's Fin soup, they're not going to be sitting down every Sunday evening to eat whale sushi with a side of dolphin sashimi.
4- A lot of the things that you mentioned are traditional cultural things. A thousand years ago, Sharks and Tigers were probably a lot more common than they are now. The Tiger was seen as a strong and powerful animal, for example. I don't see what's wrong with that.
5- Am I allowed to criticise Europeans from eating Persian Fallow Deer? You probably eat it as much as I eat Shark Fin soup or my Japanese friend eats bottle-nosed dolphin.
6- As for your non-scientific medicines - many of the herbal medicines that I've had actually have worked. My Chinese herbal cough remedy has worked better than an over-the-counter cough remedy, and guess which one has been around for thousands of years?

Please don't criticise us for things that not a lot of us actually do not do.

I already explained I was not criticizing individuals not indulging in racism. However China is guilty as sin of taking little to no action to prevent and enabling to flourish, the continued trade in animals being forced into extinction. You may not like the criticism, you might decide to take it personally, that's your choice, but what I've said is fact.

Let me cover off your raised points:

1. Most traditional remedies not containing the vital parts of endangered animals does not stop lots of traditional remedies containing the vital parts of endangered animals.

2. This is as useless a raised point as your previous statement, shark fin soup is placing massive pressure on almost all shark species in the world. Overpopulation is not an excuse, if the overpopulated country of China stopped eating it, there would be more sharks.

3. See above, the demand is still pushing species to extinction. It has nothing to do with how many times a day someone eats something, if several thousand people want to eat an animal and there's only a few hundred of them left, then the species goes extinct... unless those people are told 'no'.

4. What does this have to do with pushing an entire species into extinction?

5. I am unaware of a Europe-wide demand for Persian Fallow Deer, I do know that they are protected and there is serious consequence for hunting them. There would be little to no demand in the UK, for example, for this animal, certainly once it's status as highly endangered was known. Also, pointing and saying 'but they do it!' is a poor excuse indeed.

6. Again, more red herring. I have no doubt certain plant derived remedies work. That's a piss poor diversion from 'eating tiger cock makes you a great lover' or 'rhino horn will make you live longer', because those things have been tested and it's utter bs.

And I am not criticizing you personally, nor am I criticizing you as a Chinese person, I am criticizing the Chinese, Japanese and other Far Eastern nations for not taking steps to eliminate the continued demand for non-essential and ridiculous products that result in the extinction of the species we share the earth with.

**MeanGreenStompa**

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

1. You'll find that, actually, lots of traditional remedies do not have endangered animals. A tiny amount will.
2. Linked to point number four: you're not going to China to stop eating it. Well, the few that actually do eat it regularly. It's cultural. It's like trying to tell you Americans that you should stop eating beef because of global warming.
3. There are so many other reasons why whales and dolphins are becoming extinct. It's not a case of one country eating it. Changes in ecosystems, bad fishing practices etc are pushing whales and dolphins to extinction.
4. I've explained it in 2.
5. Precisely.
6. You know, I don't think too many Chinese people believe or believed that anyway.

Yes, something needs to be done. But look at yourself first: what practices are my fishermen using that are harming them? What am I doing that could theoretically harm whale species? Let me give you a chain of things that could harm the numbers of whales:

1: You (and millions of others) do something that contributes to the greenhouse effect.
2: This warms up the seas ever so slightly.
3: Algae bloom.
4: Phytoplankton can no longer photosynthesise so easily so many die.
5: Zooplankton are deprived of one of their major sources of food, so they die as well.
6: Whales eat zooplankton, and with the reduction of zooplankton they struggle to find food. Many die.

I haven't seen the statistics, but I'm pretty sure that more whales die for less tangible reasons such as the one above than die from Japanese whaling.

Please note that I am myself an environmentalist. I want to preserve forests, seas and the air. I'd rather it if we lived in harmony with nature rather than just destroy it. But I come from a more Spiritual line of thought, so that may be where my views differ slightly.

It's this sort of deflection and evasive talk that allow the continuation of the problem in your country.

Again, let me break down your points in turn:

1. I've already covered this: You can have 1 in 100 remedies involve the use of a vital organ from an endangered animal and it's still going to result in a dead endangered animal to use that product and as you've already covered, in a massively overpopulated country like China, that demand is actually still then fairly large. It is causing animals to go extinct.

2. Red herring: Yes, global warming is bad, it's not what we're talking about, we're talking about your country's cultural needs for delicacies and hoodoo medicines bringing about the extinction of species across the world. You can point and say 'but these things are bad as well' and you'll still not have changed the fact that China is destroying species for wasteful and self indulgent reasons.

3. There is indeed ecological pressure on these species, that's why it would be a really smart move to stop eating them or rending them down for nonfuctional medicines!

4. No you didn't.

5. ?

6. Enough do to be making species across the world extinct and not enough of the Chinese who do not believe this are trying to stop them.

As to the rest of it, yes, all these other pressures are coming to bear on these species... so people need to stop eating them or turning them into aphrodisiacs or 'medicines'...

**MeanGreenStompa**

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
I'd love to see some statistics on this. I really don't think that one or two countries can really be putting so much pressure on natural systems. The Chinese government have proven with the Panda that they try to protect wildlife. It's not enough, but at least they're doing something. For one, they banned shark fin from state banquets.

http://www.sharks.org/shark-science/242-sharks-in-decline.html

We all know sharks are in trouble. We talk about the dramatic declines in shark populations, a result of high catch rates for shark fin, and as bycatch in fisheries targeted at other species. But what is the data these statements are based on? How are such declines calculated?

Like many researchers who study sharks, I frequently give seminars where I talk about declining shark numbers. Recently I went back to review much of the research literature supporting the decline in shark numbers, and I'll highlight two of the most compelling articles here.

In the first report, Baum et al took a historical approach to estimate the change in numbers of large pelagic sharks by compiling data from fisheries logbooks. Specifically, they looked at the logs of the US tuna and swordfish longline fishing fleet in the Northwest Atlantic, from 1986-2000. While sharks are not targeted by this fishery, longline hooks catch many sharks who attempt to eat either the bait on the hook, or the captured prey. Each fishing boat records the number and species of the sharks they catch, and these numbers give an ongoing estimate of the abundance of each shark species in the region. The calculations of Baum et al found that 8 species of shark studied have declined by more than 50% in the past 15 years, with scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini) decreasing by 89%, thresher sharks (Alopias vulpinus and Alopias superciliosus) by 80% and white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) by 79%.

What about coastal reef shark species, are they doing any better? In a separate article Robbins et al analyzed numbers of two common coastal sharks off the Australian Great Barrier Reef, whitetip reef sharks (Triaenodon obesus) and grey reef sharks (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos). They counted sharks in areas with active fishing, in “no take” marine reserves, where boats are permitted but fishing is not allowed, and in “no go” marine protected areas, where boats are not allowed to enter. As a control for an undisturbed shark population - difficult to find these days - they counted sharks at the remote Cocos Islands (the Indian Ocean Cocos, not the Pacific Cocos), where there is little or no fishing.

Robbins et al found that “no go” areas carried far higher numbers of sharks than areas without this protection - close to the numbers of sharks seen at Cocos Island. Regions that were not entirely closed to boat traffic, however, the “no take” zones, showed 80% fewer whitetip reef sharks and 97% fewer grey reef sharks, even with fishing restrictions in place. Restricted fishing reserves thus appear to offer little protection for sharks, at least in this area, probably because enforcement is difficult, and much illegal fishing occurs. The authors estimated annual changes in populations of these two species, showing declines of 7% per year for whitetip reef sharks and 17% per year for grey reef sharks - rates that indicate likely extirpation (regional extinction) of these species within 20 years.

Think these statistics are depressing? Keep in mind that these studies are 5-8 years old, and there is little evidence that the status of sharks has improved since then. Recent victories in restricting shark fishing and regulating the fin trade are essential to prevent extinction of many shark species, but it will take a long time for these actions to impact such depleted populations.

The articles are:
Baum, JK, Myers, RA, Kehler, DG, Worm, B, Harley, SJ and Doherty, PA. (2003) Collapse and conservation of shark populations in the Northwest Atlantic. Science, 299: 389-392.

It can be found at: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5605/389.abstract

Robbins, WD, Hisano, M, Connolly, SR, Choat, JH. (2006) Ongoing collapse of coral-reef shark populations. Current Biology, 16:2314-2319.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Frazzled wrote:
ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
I'd love to see some statistics on this. I really don't think that one or two countries can really be putting so much pressure on natural systems. The Chinese government have proven with the Panda that they try to protect wildlife. It's not enough, but at least they're doing something. For one, they banned shark fin from state banquets.

If China, with over a BILLION people, is one of those countries you sure as bet it could be enough.

Yep, that's 1/5th of the entire population of the earth as one country.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Watch the Chinese fur farmer in the film 'Earthlings', skinning a raccoon dog alive and then throwing the flayed and still aware animals into a pile. It made me weep.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Well, we can drift down the avenue of the animal cruelty aspect and it's certainly the case that cutting off all the animals fins and then throwing it back into the ocean to die slowly is fairly repulsive, we can also look to a large amount of other things the Far East does with regard it's animal husbandry and as I've said before, the rest of the world is going to miss the days of American dominance when a culture like China is ascendant, based on it's treatment of animals. Their attitude to the creatures around them boggles my mind and it is woefully indicative of the mindset of the nation as a whole. I could rant for hours about how angry it makes me.

But the more important aspect, for me, is the extinction of species, from a planetary welfare stance. This is diminishing the biodiversity of the planet and risks food chains across the earth, especially the risk of destroying keystone species.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hordini wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Watch the Chinese fur farmer in the film 'Earthlings', skinning a raccoon dog alive and then throwing the flayed and still aware animals into a pile. It made me weep.

I don't understand why anyone would skin an animal without killing it first. That concept is just completely alien to me. From a moral perspective, I couldn't stand to do it. Even from a practical perspective, it's a hell of a lot easier to skin something that isn't still moving. Why wouldn't someone kill the thing first? I really, really don't get it.

I've shot and skinned a few hundred rabbits in my time. I always made sure I put them to the swiftest end I could.

Watching that footage, with that animal, as smart as my own dog, skinned alive and left to die in slow agony in a pile of other skinned raccoon dogs, there's something very wrong with the mindset of a person that does that. Something vile and disgusting.

Something that needs to be forcibly changed.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
... there's something very wrong with the mindset of a person that does that. Something vile and disgusting.
After our recent debate, I am really wondering where this moral absolutism is coming from ...

From the framework of morality I abide by and operate under. I did explain to you at the time that the ethical treatment of animals was very important to me in how I live my life and expect others to live theirs. I do make the separation between the morals and guidelines I use to conduct my life vs the notion that all of this is a construct build for human society. I have principals just as you do, the difference being I understand them to be constructed from an amalgam of life experience and learning and you believe they exist in a 'beyond' that cannot be explained.

Recognizing that my morality and ethical guidelines are constructed from my learned experiences and external influences rather than inherent in no way diminishes, for me, their importance.

Manchu wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Something that needs to be forcibly changed.
Or is arbitrarily disagreeing with other people enough to justify violence against them?

Well, it seemed to be in vogue for those religious types, so why not embrace it and apply it to other absolutely held beliefs? Let's launch a war on the animal cruelty heathens, skin em alive!

(also you can forceably change things by creating laws and punishments against the practice, which, possibly, I may have been alluding to... )

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
There is no way that you can justify holding others up to morals that you acknowledge you have made up for yourself.

Well, as discussed in that previous thread, my morality is guided and built by the society around me, its the same way you developed yours, or are you going to tell me you'd have suddenly developed Catholicism if you'd been raised Hindu?
You're guilty of once again slanting what I've said to an outcome that isn't here, I did not say I made up morals, rather I built a framework from outside influences. It's what we do as people, growing up in societies.

Manchu wrote:

"Laws and punishments" do not entail violence?

They can. You implied I was suggesting a violent uprising. I was, point of fact, suggesting strong laws.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
You are saying that our society, which you presume agrees with you, should force people in another society to do what you say our society prefers. And behind every law there is violence; it's called enforcement. So in other words, your position sums up as we should threaten force to all those who disagree with our arbitrary beliefs -- we should force them to agree.

And if we deploy this violence in the enforcement of the law, then it is a socially acceptable form of violence.

I am saying that our society should apply pressure to their society to alter.

I am saying if the Chinese government is saying it recognizes a need to change from eating shark fin, it should legislate against it.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
But if our values are just constructed, according to our own culture-specific preferences, then the act of applying pressure to others is nothing more than imperialism. What you're really saying is that you think the imperial model is best. Again, you think might makes right.

Explain your leap to this conclusion.

Why is it 'nothing more than imperialism'?

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
How is it anything but imperialism?

You're advocating the application of force to control other people because you think your culture is better than theirs.

We all hold opinions, beliefs and moral answers, we are all likely fairly certain that the opinion, belief or moral answer we hold is the best one, or we'd have swapped it out for another one.

We all therefore hold that others should be doing what we're doing or being more like us in some way, shape or form, because the answer we have is the right or best or most suitable.

So, according to your definition, provided above, we're all imperialists.

I would guess then, given your vast definition and the fact that if we judge all humanity to that standard, we're all guilty of wanting others to be like us, yep, guess that's 'imperialism'.

I think your definition is wrong, personally, as imperialism cannot, from where I'm sitting, be the action or belief of an individual, but the conquest of a culture by another.

The animal rights pressure being applied to the Far East is far more easily attributable to globalization, which is currently steered by Western powers and therefore given towards Western morality.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
MGS, You're argument is much simpler than that:

(1) Morality is a matter of perspective

(2) What I perceive as moral is moral for me

(3) It is also moral for others to the extent that I can make them agree

(4) I should make them agree

So you see, if someone was stronger than you and could force you to skin animals alive, according to your argument, that's all perfectly legitimate.

... we've already done this a few times in the last argument, but sure, I'll repeat it again...

It would be legitimate for them if their morality was somehow constructed to hold the skinning of animals to be sacrosanct... it would remain terrible for me given my own constructed morality.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Jehovah's Witnesses believe they have the ultimate truth, they want to take away birthdays and christmas, which I find a terrible idea, they think it's great and they are much happier without it, they think they are doing good, I think they are peddling misery.

In their constructed morality and belief, they have to help me.

In mine, they are wrong and present a direct threat to my ability to consume cake and booze.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
If someone murders your loved ones, does that prove they never had a right to live?

No. Again, you're doing this wrong.
If your loved ones arrived on an island where ritual sacrifices were selected from those who arrived on the island and everyone in the society agreed this was a right thing to appease their angry invisible giant in the sky, then, for the islanders, the loved ones of yours should die. It's terrible for you, terrible for your loved ones and utterly correct for the islanders.

Manchu wrote:

I'm kind of nauseated by this debate actually. Nevermind.

I was nauseated by it towards the end of the last debate, yet you insisted on bringing it back up. Let it die, we won't budge each other on it and I'm surprised you felt the need to dredge it to the surface.

Cut off it's fins and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I'm surprised you felt the need to dredge it to the surface
Me too. There's something about your insistence of bullying others into doing what you want for no other reason (even in your own mind) than you feel very strongly about what you want that really, really irritates me. But you're right, it's not worth talking about.

People thinking they are right and others should recognize it or concede to it isn't something I have a monopoly on, indeed, you going 3 pages of a thread with me over your views on the intrinsic nature of human rights would suggest you share that very trait...

Also, your jumping into that thread to say 'lol disney fans' about people talking about their belief in animals rights really really irritated me and showed a disregard for what others felt, especially given you and other religious posters expectation, supported by the rules of this site, that your held beliefs be treated with respect, it read as hypocritical and something I was fairly disappointed in given your previous decent posting, but I got over it, you'll get over me irritating you as well.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Mr Nobody wrote:
Manchu does have a point though, it's not our place to idly label these people villains. And it's certainly not our place to ride in like some shining knight and strike them down. As a civilized society, we're supposed to move people through reason and compassion.

Well, at least that's what we're supposed to do, doesn't always work out that way.

As for whether these people are broken or not; I think they're just numb to it. These people are the poor and starving and don't see much humanity around them.

No, the people consuming the shark fin soup or buying tiger cocks or rhino horns are not poor, that shiz is not cheap.

I'm not attacking the African fisherman who can get a weeks wage by landing a thresher and definning it, I'm blasting the wealthy and the 'mystique' of China and elsewhere who place all this weight of cultural importance on eating it. From the people I've spoken to who've eaten it, you can't even taste the shark in there anyway. It's pointless.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
MGS: When it comes down to it, though, this is just about having idiosyncratically warm feelings toward animals. And as you yourself note, these feelings come from the place and time in which you live. That's what I meant by Disney. Disney conflates human beings with animals. And apparently you do, too. You clearly want to punish people who disagree with you about how animals should be treated but you also reserve that, according to them, it might be that they are doing nothing wrong.

Again, yet...again...
I do not 'conflate' human beings with animals, in terms of our emotional states or intellect. I do not believe cats and dogs discuss their state of being or feel just as we feel. What I do believe in is that the human being is an animal, an advanced ape. We belong to the animal kingdom.
I want to punish people who breach my code of ethics, I am not uncommon in wanting that, I'm sure every parent feels a rush of violent urge or ill will whenever they hear about a child abused. I, more to the point, want the 'bad thing' to stop. Again, this is a fairly human wish. I'm sure the parents of children married to grown men in islamic countries are following their religious and cultural norms, yet from where we are sitting this is a terrible thing and must be stopped.

Manchu wrote:

Except you are saying that there is something wrong with them -- something "vile and disgusting." According to the rest of your philosophy, it is impossible for you to know that. All you can know is whether you consider them vile. So it comes out to you saying that we should make them do what you want because you say they're vile.

Of course it's possible for me to know that they are, to me, vile and disgusting. They aren't vile and disgusting to themselves.

Manchu wrote:

This is the same as some Christians saying homosexuals should be harmed because they are "vile." It was never and will never be right to harm homosexual people because of their homosexuality regardless of what the prevailing social values were or are.

'be right', no, not to you or I, absolutely. However, there are plenty of people walking the face of the earth now, who, in the name of their God, do indeed do terrible harm to people for their sexuality and believe themselves 'right'.

Manchu wrote:

You post as if you've done something really special by chucking religion out of your life but from what I see all you've managed to do is keep all the terrible parts and get rid of the good, like an acknowledgment of objective human dignity.

You're reading that into my posts, I've always rather liked the idea of being religious, it must be a wonderful thing to awaken every morning with the comfort of an ever present and loving deity to watch over and protect you, it likely removes so many dilemmas and so much anxiety from life, unfortunately no creator being has ever spoken to me. As I tell my evangelical grandmother, who insists I am to be a great preacher one day, on the day God speaks to me, I will listen.
You hold to objective human dignity but find the notions of dignity for other species to be laughable, all I've said from the beginning of our conversation is that if you can believe in one, the belief in the other should not be dismissed as absolutely easily as you seem to do. You stand absolutely in the defense of one abstract thing and then tell me the other abstract thing is ridiculous. It's a double standard to me.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
You hold to objective human dignity but find the notions of dignity for other species to be laughable
No, I say animals don't have rights because they are not persons. They do have dignity, as creatures, and it is a human obligation not to abuse them and this is what I understand my religious tradition to mean.

Is this because you believe humans have a special place in creation? A soul?

**MeanGreenStompa**

Manchu wrote:
Not really ... at best, "soul" could be used as a kind of placeholder word for the apparent qualities of human beings that make usunique in creation, which is what I'm actually talking about. There is no other animal that is also a person. I think that if we start talking about "souls" we're getting into some weird connotations about evolution and intelligent design, which to me is a huge red herring. Besides, it's not as if the rest of creation has no "spiritual" aspect. In any case, as a Catholic, I completely reject that the soul is like the driver inside the vehicle of the body.

And we come full circle to the fundamental difference.

You believe person/soul/humanity is a separate thing, an existing thing that remains a whole and definite. I believe person/soul/humanity is a construct, an existing thing that dwells, constructed, in the human brain, as part of the construct we call the mind. You have no evidence to prove me wrong, I have no argument to sway you from your position.

Irresistible force, I give you the immovable object.