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

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**ExNoctemNacimur**

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.

**Hordini**

Ouze wrote:
Medium of Death wrote:
Thrown back into the sea, finless.

That's the most barbaric practice. If you're going to hunt them, fine, but at least kill them humanely.

I also feel the same way about lobster fisherman who snap lobster in two and throw the front end overboard. At least kill it first.

Yeah, taking the fin and throwing them back is disgusting and unbelievably wasteful. If you're going to kill the animal, you ought to use as much of it as you can, especially if it's something like a shark.

**Rented Tritium**

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.

It's all social. It doesn't matter what the governments do if there is still a market. It's up to the people to put social pressure on their peers. If you let your friends eat it, then you are part of the problem.

**ExNoctemNacimur**

Well, none of my friends do so . . .

**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.

**Frazzled**

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.

**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.

**Orlanth**

Ouze wrote:
Medium of Death wrote:
Thrown back into the sea, finless.

That's the most barbaric practice. If you're going to hunt them, fine, but at least kill them humanely.

I also feel the same way about lobster fisherman who snap lobster in two and throw the front end overboard. At least kill it first.

I gets worse that that.

Catch the python, tie it up by its head, or use a nail, skin it, then leave it to die.

**Kovnik Obama**

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.

Many dead wild elephants in China and Mesopotamia disagrees with you. And that was over 2000 years ago.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orlanth wrote:

Catch the python, tie it up by its head, or use a nail, skin it, then leave it to die.

By all that's holy...

**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.

**Kovnik Obama**

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.

**Manchu**

Mencius wrote:Suppose there were someone who reported to Your Majesty, 'My strength is sufficient to lift five hundred pounds, but not sufficient to lift one feather."

Mencius is talking to a king who takes pity on an ox he sees led to be sacrificed but also massacres the population of a country he invades. I think Ghandi said something about judging the greatness of a society by how animals are treated. In both cases, you see the issue is inhumanity. If man is the predator of man, what chance do animals have?

**Hordini**

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.

**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.

**Hordini**

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

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.

I've shot and skinned animals before too, so the skinning itself doesn't bother me. But I agree, skinning an animal this is still frigging alive is sick.

**Manchu**

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 ...

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Something that needs to be forcibly changed.

Or is arbitrarily disagreeing with other people enough to justify violence against them?

**Frazzled**

Kovnik Obama 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.

This is why
1. I like dogs way more than people.
2. I carefully screen what I am going to watch.

**whembly**

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

hoooboy...

Back to OP: If you're hunt'n animals, you put it down instantly and you use all of it.

**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... )

**Manchu**

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

"Laws and punishments" do not entail violence?

**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.

**Manchu**

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.

**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.

**Manchu**

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.

**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'?

**Manchu**

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.

**Mr Nobody**

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

"Laws and punishments" do not entail violence?

Yes. Yes you can. Just make sure you're the one writing the rules.

**Manchu**

Mr Nobody wrote:
Just make sure your the one writing the rules.

You mean, holding the gun.

**Frazzled**

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.

Er, isn't that what we do every day with that whole armed forces/drones/threat of 15,000 fusion warheads?

**Manchu**

Frazzled wrote:
Er, isn't that what we do every day with that whole armed forces/drones/threat of 15,000 fusion warheads?

Some people say that's exactly what we're doing. Others say that morality is universal because humanity is one thing. People in China have the same right to life, food, raiment, shelter, leisure, etc, as people in Tibet, or Spain, or anywhere else because they are humans regardless of what their own customs and governments hold.

MGS says none of that is true. He says, although he has been dancing around it, that Truth only comes from force. And he'd like to show other societies the Truth.