Posted by Casson on Jun 7, 2011 in
4 Oceans This installment of my monthly Alternet column, “4 Oceans,” was originally published on June 2, 2011.
From bad...
A powerful conservation movement is afoot in the United States. Shark finning — the practice of catching sharks, slicing their fins off, and then dumping the animals overboard (often still alive and slowly bleeding to death) — is being exposed for the monstrosity it is. Globally, we slaughter tens of millions of sharks each year. And for the most part, we do it for the fins, which can fetch hundreds of dollars a pound.
This is insanity. We need sharks in our oceans. Without sharks and other top-level carnivores to keep populations of sub-predators in check, we run the risk of losing productive and well-balanced marine ecosystems to trophic collapse. Thankfully, some communities are finally saying no to shark finning. Hawaii banned the possession and sale of shark fins in 2010. Washington State signed a similar prohibition into law on May 12 of this year, and in California, a ban on trafficking in shark fins is working its way through the legislature.
It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of such a law passing in California. More shark fins are sold and consumed in the Golden State than in any of the other 49. If we can manage to protect these unique animals under California state law, we may not be far from a nationwide moratorium on this staggeringly unsustainable practice.
Here are several common arguments being used to defend this practice, followed by my thoughts on why they’re unsound.
1: Shark fin consumption is a cultural practice and tradition.
Some cultures have a history of consuming shark fin. I am not in any place to pass judgment on these cultures, and I don’t want to. All I want to say is that culture is not the unchanging monolith that some make it out to be.
... to worse...
Culture is a dynamic representation of both the history and the current state of a particular group, be it based around attitudes, ideals, goals, shared experiences, or other connective forces. A culture is not a static thing — it changes with the times. Over the centuries, many cultural practices have ended in favor of the evolving wisdom and consciousness of the human race. For example, while I may not be part of a culture that has historically practiced shark finning, I am a member of a culture that has historically practiced slavery.
I am a Caucasian American and a direct descendant of slave-owning ancestors who believed in the inferiority of human beings with a darker skin color than their own. I even have relatives who died while shooting at the Union army to protect this cultural practice (among other things, of course). Slavery was a common practice in North America for centuries. It was part of our culture. It was also wrong. And, thankfully, it ended.
Human beings evolve. Our cultures evolve. As we learn more about our planet and ourselves, we gain the opportunity to learn from our mistakes. We now know far too much about humanity’s dependence on Earth’s environment to keep slaughtering sharks for their fins. The tragedy of shark finning is more than just sharks dying for shortsighted profit — it’s that today, when we have learned so much about sharks and their irreplaceable roles in our oceans, we continue to mindlessly slaughter them in the name of “culture.”
2: Shark fin is good for your health.
Some schools of Eastern medicine equate shark fin consumption with heightened energy and virility. I am certainly no nutritionist, and will not attempt to dispute this belief. That said, it’s a proven fact that a typical bowl of shark fin soup is in actuality quite devoid of most vitamins when compared to, say, a similar serving of vegetable soup. Shark fin does have some nutritional value — especially some key elements like iron and zinc — but it’s nothing one couldn’t get from any number of other foods. To kill a shark for such a meager nutritional reward is a terrible bargain for the planet at large.
3: Sharks are dangerous! They eat people!
Certain works of art, literature and film have such a profound impact on society that they literally shape our culture. Jaws was one of those films. It terrified an entire generation and set shark conservation efforts back 20 years.
... to even worse.
Jaws was also one of the most inaccurate and unfair films ever made when it comes to portraying actual shark behavior. The film that made us all afraid to go back in the water had virtually zero basis in reality, yet it engendered a phobia of sharks that has afflicted us for decades. The problem is so acute, in fact, that Peter Benchley, the creator of Jaws, had a massive crisis of conscience and dedicated much of his later life to ocean conservation and shark protection efforts.
Globally, shark encounters with humans account for about 10 deaths a year, give or take a handful. By contrast, lightning strikes kill over 20,000 people each year. Dog bites, pig attacks, and even fugu blowfish (due to improper preparation) cause more human fatalities annually than sharks. Sharks are not the mindless killing machines that we once feared they were. The contribution sharks make to a healthy ocean vastly outweighs their danger to the human race.
4: We can fin sharks in a sustainable manner.
Really? Can we? I personally doubt that very much. We understand very little about most species of sharks, and it is extremely difficult to properly manage a fishery when we lack such key information as growth rate, migration patterns, and reproductive behavior.
It's not worth it.
That, however, is not even the main issue. Sustainability goes beyond choosing which species are acceptable to consume and which aren’t. One of the core issues here is respect for the animal — which, in this case, is manifest in how we are using it for our own purposes. How can we have a sustainable fishery that involves cutting off the fins of a living creature and dumping the rest? This kind of waste and disrespect has no place in a modern food system that is based on ecosystem awareness and sound resource management. To look at this in simple economic terms: If a given shark weighs, say, 150 pounds, the fins might be 10 pounds of that. So to cut off the fins and dump the rest is equivalent to a retention rate of 1:14 — one pound of catch, 14 pounds of waste.
The very act of shark finning flies directly in the face of sustainable living. We need to outgrow this practice and embrace a positive relationship with sharks. For those of you residing in California, please contact your state representative as soon as possible and urge her/him to support AB 376. An ocean without sharks just won’t work.
Tags: ab 376, china, chinese food, fin, finning, great white, green, leland yee, mako, san francisco, shark, soup, thresher
Dynamite fishing?
This installment of my monthly Alternet column, “4 Oceans,” was originally published on April 1, 2011.
The thunderous power of the dollar can obliterate nearly all barriers between consumers and the objects of our desire. If one is willing and able to throw out enough cash, there’s very little in this world that we can’t have. Sadly, this reach extends to a number of aquatic species that just aren’t built to cope with such pressure. In this month’s “4 Oceans,” we examine several seafood items that we just shouldn’t eat, even if we have the wherewithal to acquire them.
Bluefin tuna
This is probably old news to a lot of readers, but the current state of the world’s bluefin tuna populations have been reduced to shadows of their former glory. The fish that fed Rome’s legions now barely ekes out an existence as it is hunted relentlessly to satisfy the top echelon of the world’s sushi industry. Bluefin prices soar while stocks continue to plummet, shackled to the twin lead weights of insatiable demand and ineffectual management.
I can answer that
Last year, a smattering of different countries attempted to grant the bluefin protection under the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), which would have effectively ended international trade in this animal. This push was mercilessly quashed by a larger and more committed cadre of governments led by Japan, which hosted cooperative delegates at a pre-vote banquet where they served – you guessed it – bluefin tuna.
Bluefin stocks around the world are verging on utter collapse and yet fishing pressure does not abate. Politics and short-sighted economic interests are nearly always victorious over science and environmental consciousness whenever this bluefin is involved. But even if we can’t depend on political processes, we can least put the chopsticks down.
Orange roughy
Over the last four years, ten of the twenty largest seafood retailers in the United States have discontinued orange roughy. Some stores, like Whole Foods and Wegmans, even made public statements on the environmental impacts associated with this fishery when explaining their decisions to stop selling this species. It’s comforting to see for-profit retail enterprises taking stands that seem based more on ethics and long-game considerations than simple quick-fix cash grabs.
You're having a rough day, orange you?
Anyhow, orange roughy is a fish that has no business playing any significant role in our seafood industry. The animal simply isn’t built to withstand heavy fishing pressure. First off, it reaches market size well before sexual maturity – a lamentable characteristic, since this results in many roughy being eaten before they’ve had a chance to reproduce and repopulate the fishery. Second, the animal itself can live to a tremendous age – ninety-year-old roughy are not uncommon (at least, they weren’t before we started eating them all.) Fish that live that long are generally not built to reproduce in great numbers; they have evolutionarily invested in longevity rather than in quantity of offspring.
To worsen matters, orange roughy is caught using wantonly destructive bottom trawl nets, and its flesh is a simple, flaky white fillet (there are other, more sustainable sources for this type of product.) It’s best to avoid this species altogether.
Shark (and shark fin)
Mmm-mmm-bad
The more we learn about the role that sharks play in our oceanic ecosystems, the more bat-shit crazy we have to be to keep slaughtering them. Sharks are apex predators, feeding slowly from the top of the food chain and ensuring that the populations of other animals in their areas are kept in check. Without sharks, we see population explosions of their prey items, which in turn devastate the organisms that they prey upon, and so on and so forth. The removal of a single shark from the food system it polices is akin to hurtling a massive monkey wrench into the core gears of the ocean’s ecological stabilization machinery, and we are tossing out somewhere between 50 and 100 million of these wrenches every year.
While many sharks are killed accidentally as bycatch in longline fisheries that target other animals (longlined swordfish is particularly worrisome), the majority of annual shark casualties are perpetrated intentionally by those the shark fin industry. Shark fins – used for soup, especially for weddings and other significant events, by certain segments of the world’s Chinese communities – can fetch astronomical prices and are often used to convey a message of status and wealth. Luckily, the world is waking up to the damage that finning wreaks upon our ocean. Shark fin bans have been enacted in Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan (Mariana Islands), and have been proposed in California, Oregon, and Washington State. If these landmark pieces of legislation pass, we will have taken a great step towards protecting these unique and mysterious creatures.
Chilean sea bass
The Patagonian and Antarctic toothfish (aka Chilean sea bass) are long-lived, slow-to-reproduce apex predators. Still, there are those that claim there is such a thing as a sustainable Chilean sea bass fishery. Some would argue that a particular population, under the guidelines of a particular management authority, governed under a certain catch quota, can in fact be fished sustainably, and that this particular fishery, cut off from the larger amorphous Chilean sea bass industry – dominated as it is by pirates and a rapacious gold-rush mentality – merits our support.
The face of overfishing?
Allow me to propose a slightly different line of thought.
The world is a finite place. I know it doesn’t seem as such, but the ocean is a contained area, and it has boundaries. It does not go on forever. It ends – and in more than one sense.
Over the past century, the way that we fish has changed. Decade after decade, we have pushed the boundaries of our oceans in every way imaginable – geographically (ships are going farther), bathymetrically (ships are fishing deeper), and temporally (ships are spending more time on the water). In our quest for seafood, we strain at the very boundaries of our food system, until we reach the ocean’s farthest-flung reaches in all three categories – by dropping hooks to the ocean floor off of Antarctica in the middle of winter.
That is how, where, and when we catch Chilean sea bass.
Sustainable fishing simply cannot occur in an area and at a depth that is so obviously a reaction to an overblown and exhausted food system — a food system that, because of its inability to balance itself, has cantilevered out into dangerous extremes. The very existence of a Chilean sea bass fishery is in itself evidence of an unsustainable fishing paradigm. To label a Chilean sea bass fishery sustainable only serves as evidence to the contrary, as the claim itself underscores our failure to grasp and to apply the true meaning of sustainability to our seafood industry.
Tags: 4 Oceans, alternet, bluefin, chilean sea bass, dollar, dynamite, fin, finning, orange roughy, otoro, overfishing, shark, toothfish, toro
Posted by Casson on Jun 10, 2010 in
News and Announcements 
Mine! Mine! All mine!
In an age where we are pushing our planet’s limits in search of resources, we find more and more poignancy in questions of corporate social responsibility. What obligations, either ethical or legal, should govern an a extractive operation as it roots around in the rainforest, slurps up the oceans, or grinds its way into the Earth’s crust in search of coltan, cod, or crude oil?
We have reached a point where the simple ability to access a resource can no longer be interpreted as right to do so. This kind of anachronistic thinking has gotten us into a world of trouble. The fact is that we are an incredibly powerful species, with the technological capacity to perform jaw-dropping feats. We can build immense transit tunnels below the ocean, launch intricate networks of satellites to enrich communication, and splice vegetable DNA into a chicken. This kind of space-age tech lends perceived legitimacy to business plans which make endeavors like offshore oil drilling appear safe and massively profitable. A few people make a lot of money, something goes horribly wrong, and we all pay the price.
Crude behavior
The toxic results of this kind of unmitigated rapacity have been spurting into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks now. A small group of people decided that they were willing to gamble with the health of our planet for their own personal gain. We should be furious. Who do these pompous egoists think they are, and why, for God’s sake, are we allowing them to compromise our future for their own profit?
This appallingly selfish approach to business must be stopped. Given that we live together on a finite planet, the corporations of the future must be those that are willing to take responsibility for their actions.
The concept of sustainable seafood is predicated on the idea that seafood purveyors, which have for decades served as implements of oceanic destruction, must start standing up for the planet regardless of traditional consumer preferences. The fact is that the average seafood diner or sushi patron simply does not have the time to educate him/herself on the environmental impacts of the vast and ever-changing array of seafood options available to consumers in today’s world. Diabolically efficient fishing technology coupled with cheap refrigeration and well-organized global freight networks allow us access to countless seafood items for all corners of the globe, some environmentally acceptable and some quite the opposite. As such, chefs, merchants, and restaurateurs that take the initiative to defend the ocean and its future. After all, if you work in the seafood industry, it is the ocean that is providing your paycheck.
The face of the future?
Thankfully, we are seeing a gradual shift towards this more responsible way of thinking. In the seafood world, I can think of no better example than Martin Reed and his sustainable seafood delivery business, ilovebluesea.com. Reed shoulders the burden of sorting the proverbial wheat from the chaff himself, so his customers really can’t make a mistake in terms of the environmental repercussions of their choices. Ilovebluesea.com refuses to offer seafood items that are in the Seafood Watch “avoid” category or on the Greenpeace red list, and demands transparency and traceability on the part of his suppliers. Gear type, catch location, and other important information must all be provided before ilovebluesea.com agrees to offer the fish. The company is even addressing packaging and shipping issues by using recyclable and/or biodegradable containers rather than Styrofoam and similar petro-synthetic nightmares.
A much larger company also recently took an impressive step towards corporate social responsibility in the seafood world. Maersk, the shipping giant, has declared that it will not transport any whale products, any shark products (including fins), any Patagonian or Antarctic toothfish, or any orange roughy on its ships due to concerns about the sustainability of these products. This is a very powerful message, especially when one considers that Maersk ships about 20% of all of the world’s internationally traded sea-borne seafood products.
Full steam ahead
The Greenpeace seafood retailer rankings also help to shed some light on seafood purveyors that are – or are not, as the case may be – doing the right thing. Companies like Target and Wegmans are taking positive steps and working towards truly sustainable seafood operations, while others, like Costco, are charging full steam, hands clapped over ears and yammering loudly, propelling us all in our mutual handcart down to Hades.
We obviously do not have the legal framework in place to reign in this kind of behavior. Otherwise, one could surmise, we would never have had a Deepwater explosion, and Costco wouldn’t be selling Chilean seabass and orange roughy in the first place. Given that, it is up to us as consumers to act.
We need to reward businesses that are making the change towards legitimate corporate social responsibility. Buy seafood from honest purveyors that don’t try to pull the wool over our eyes. Some companies are willingly selling out our oceans to line their bank accounts – so why are we shopping there?
If you want to make your money from my ocean, you’d better treat it with respect. It’s about responsibility, jerk.
Tags: bp, chilean sea bass, corporate social responsibility, costco, csr, deepwater, fin, greenpeace, gulf, ilovebluesea, loggerhead, maersk, martin, oil spill, orange roughy, reed, seafood watch, shark, target, toothfish, turtle, wegmans, whale
Posted by Casson on May 4, 2010 in
News and Announcements,
whaling It’s a bad time to be an ocean-dweller.
Nets of doom
First, we have the overfishing crisis, which continues virtually unabated. Every day, we yank hundreds of thousands of pounds of life out of the sea, often in strikingly inefficient and destructive ways – bottom trawls rake the floor of the ocean, pulverizing corals and flattening any animals that lack the locomotive capacity to evade them, while pelagic longlines indiscriminately slaughter curious seabirds, turtles, and sharks as collateral damage in our unrelenting quest for seafood.
To make matters worse, President Obama, who was elected in part by an engaged and hopeful environmentalist demographic, has completely turned his back on the oceans and their largest denizens – whales. His 2008 promise to strengthen the international moratorium on commercial whaling has been completely subsumed by an insidious new agenda that seeks to dismantle the moratorium, legalize whaling in the Southern Ocean (including Japan’s ongoing hunt for endangered fin, sei, and humpback whales), and create an unspoken tolerance among the world’s governments for this intolerable activity.
Nice work, slick
And above it all, offshore drilling has finally revealed itself as exactly what we have always feared it would be – an inevitable environmental cataclysm. The ruptured Deepwater Horizon pipeline continues to release untold amounts of toxic crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, strangling birds, fish, and any other life forms unfortunate enough to be caught within its suffocating expanse… which is currently the size of the State of Delaware, not to mention up to 45 feet deep in some areas.
Our oceans and their denizens are besieged on all sides. Given these seemingly insurmountable odds, it is difficult to maintain any sense of optimism when one considers the state of our world’s waters. Still, all is not lost. All three of the aforementioned menaces have sparked resistance, and with the right kind of passion and leadership, we just may find a way out of this mess after all.
Misleading labels: an endangered species
Although overfishing remains a tremendous problem, Greenpeace’s recent Carting Away the Oceans report highlights some significant progress: quite a few major retailers have taken strong steps towards the development of sustainable seafood operations. Companies like Target, Wegmans, Whole Foods, and Safeway are making positive sourcing decisions that reduce environmental degradation and enable their customers to shop with a more confidence. Even Trader Joe’s, which earned both ire and infamy last year for its indifference to sustainability in seafood, has turned a corner. A recent announcement on the company’s website indicates that Trader Joe’s has discontinued orange roughy and is currently developing a sustainable seafood policy as well as more informative and transparent labeling. Beyond this, the company has called out the need for marine reserves in fishery management and has promised to use its purchasing dollars to support visionary leadership in industry (such as closed-containment salmon). The work has only just begun, but it is comforting to know that this company, which was once an incorrigible laggard in these areas, may now be in the process of becoming a true leader.
Our government’s efforts to legalize whaling and reward Japan, Iceland, and Norway for their continual disregard of international law and the will of the vast majority of the Earth’s population seem to have hit a snag as well. Monica Medina, the lead US delegate to the International Whaling Commission and the champion of the legalization effort, seems to be backpedaling a bit in the face of enormous public resistance. Opposition to this despicable initiative is so vocal, in fact, that a petition urging Congress to reconsider has received over 100,000 signatures – and the number is growing every day.
Apply lessons learned... please
It’s not easy to find something positive to say about the horrific oil disaster in the Gulf, but maybe – just maybe – we can find a way to coax a silver lining out of this mess. One can surmise that if it is this difficult to repair oil drilling mishaps in an area as accessible and temperate as the Gulf of Mexico, it would be infinitely more challenging in the Arctic. And there will be mistakes in the Arctic. There will be spills, fires, and other accidents – they are inevitable to some degree, as we have so painfully learned. So perhaps our government will read the writing on the wall and reinstate a total moratorium on offshore drilling, including the new leases in the Arctic. While this won’t quell Deepwater’s hemorrhaging, save Louisiana’s shrimp industry, or clean the crude off of any brown pelicans, it would certainly be a massive positive step towards precluding even more – and even worse – nightmares like this from occurring in the future. Even California’s Governor Schwarzenegger has heeded the harsh lessons of Deepwater Horizon and rescinded his support for a bill that would prompt new oil exploration off the coast of California. Now, I never thought I’d want Obama to take a page from the Governator’s book, but in this case, it seems like Schwarzenegger has the right idea.
Thank you
So yes, things look grim for our oceans, no doubt about it – but there is hope. There is always hope. Countless people are struggling against the crises facing our oceans, doing their utmost to heal this planet that we are ravaging so blindly. And it is those people, and their efforts, and the possibility of a better future for us and for our children that keeps hope alive. It is undoubtedly a bad week to be a fish, or a whale, or a turtle, or a Louisiana shrimper – but next week just might be a little better.
Tags: arctic, bottom trawl, bycatch, california, carting away the oceans, catastrophe, deepwater, drill, drilling, environment, fin, governator, gulf, horizon, humpback, longline, louisiana, medina, mexico, monica, moratorium, obama, oil spill, overfishing, oyster, safeway, schwarzenegger, seals, sei, shrimp, shrimper, slick, target, trader joe's, turtle, wegmans, whale, whales, whaling, whole foods
Posted by Casson on Feb 25, 2010 in
News and Announcements,
whaling 
All tangled up
There is no doubt that Japanese illegal whaling is a problem. How and why it is a problem varies depending on your perspective, but the simple fact that something is rotten in the Southern Ocean is beyond debate. Whales are having their brains blown apart because of political pigheadedness, anti-whaling activists are causing tremendous economic harm to the whaling fleet, the government in Tokyo is losing face, Japanese taxpayers are wasting their hard-earned money, and sailors and whalers alike are being put in mortal danger by the high-pressure water hoses, butyric acid (which, incidentally, is not strong enough to “burn” anything), long-range acoustic weapons, and other offensive contraptions regularly used in these whale wars (wait — can I say that? Did I violate something?)
Anyhow, it is in everyone’s interest that action is taken to remedy this situation and restore some semblance of order to those frigid, choppy seas. In fact, Kevin Rudd – Prime Minister of Australia, the country in whose waters (as much as Antarctic waters belong to anyone) most of the mayhem occurs – has recently served the Japanese with an ultimatum: cease all whaling in the Southern Ocean by November of 2010, or face a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice. New Zealand, too, has vowed to support Australia’s challenge.
Whale, schmale... I want a new Lexus
The International Whaling Commission (IWC), a multilateral organization tasked with “managing” whale stocks, has proven to be relatively ineffectual. This is largely due to a voting structure that is quite conducive to electoral fraud. Rich countries are able to bribe tiny nations that have no interest in whaling one way or the other, and since population has no bearing in the IWC – Brazil, for example, has the same weight as Barbados – large, wealthy nations with a vested interest in the outcome of the vote can easily sway things their way with some well-placed deposits.
Since the IWC can’t manage to do its job, it has created a “support group” tasked with finding a way to tame this bugbear. Unfortunately, this support group’s plan – known as the Maquieira Plan after Christian Maquieira, the Chairman of the IWC and the mastermind behind this proposal – is just about the worst possible way to deal with this issue.
How do we solve the problems created by the Japanese scientific whaling program? Maquieira’s answer is simple: we legalize whaling.
I’ll say that again. Japan is illegally killing whales, so we solve that problem by… making it legal to kill whales.
Open season
Basically, the Plan proposes that the scientific whaling proviso – by which Japan lamely justifies its whaling enterprise – be stripped from the management regulations set by the IWC, but in exchange, the global moratorium on commercial whaling will be lifted, and those countries that currently hunt whales (Japan, Norway, and Iceland – the three problem-child states that have brazenly defied the rest of the universe for the last twenty-eight years and have continued to kill whales regardless of international law and public opinion) will be awarded kill quotas for at least the next ten years.
The quotas themselves have not yet been set, but they will include minke, humpback, and endangered fin whales — just like the ones that are currently being hunted. So basically, Chairman Maquieira’s eponymous plan is palm-meets-forehead moronic because it does absolutely nothing. It is also palm-meets-forehead brilliant, however, as it makes the reprehensible actions of the Japanese fleet legal, and thus no further “illegal activity” will be taking place in the Southern Ocean. Problem solved!
Telling it like it isn't
Maquieria’s Plan is not about saving whales. It’s about helping governments save face, and giving the policymakers in Tokyo a way out of this mess at the expense of the planet. Sure, there’s still blood in the water… and we’ll still have warehouses full of unwanted whale meat… and Japanese tax dollars will continue to fund an anachronistic, backwards industry… but hey, at least the politicians get to retain their pride, right?
Thankfully, no one has been fooled by this laughable piece of idiocy. Canberra roundly rejected the Plan and reiterated Rudd’s ultimatum. Moreover, environmental groups like Greenpeace have pulled no punches in calling it out as the absolute waste of paper that it is.
Whaling in the Southern Ocean is illegal for a reason — it is an unsustainable and environmentally devastating enterprise. Solving the problem of illegal whaling by legalizing it is like trying to reduce the rate of gun-related homicide by stabbing everyone to death.
We will end illegal whaling. We will do it, though, by saving whales – not by saving politicians.
Tags: australia, brazil, canberra, christian, fin, humpback, iceland, illegal, international whaling commission, iwc, japan, kevin rudd, LRAD, maquieira, minke, new zealand, nisshin maru, Norway, sea shepherd, southern ocean, tokyo, whale, whaling
Battlestar Impractica
Last week, the black-hulled Nisshin Maru, public enemy number one of ocean worshipers around the globe, steamed out of an oddly quiet Japanese harbor. While traditionally its departure has been the cause of much revelry in the local port of Inoshima, this year saw no fanfare, no sendoff ceremony, no parades – just a shame-steeped ship, skulking southward, bound for the icy waters of the Southern Ocean.
Yes, it’s that wonderful time of year again, the season when the Japanese whaling fleet descends upon the Antarctic whale sanctuary and slaughters hundreds of peaceful cetaceans in the name of research. The scientific papers drawing from this annual festival of brutality are not publicly released, but the Japanese government is unequivocal in stating that these mysterious and inconclusive studies are a more than valid reason to massacre over a thousand whales each year. It is odd, however, that no other country engaging in cetacean research seems to need to butcher these animals in order to learn about their habits, behavior, social networks, and physiology. Strange.
Ouch
Anyhow, the Nisshin Maru and its sidekick fleet of spotter boats and kill ships return to the Antarctic every year to revisit their dubious mission of butchering whales in the name of science. These ships were designed for one purpose, and one purpose only — the wholesale destruction of cetacean life. The Nisshin Maru in particular is equipped with all facilities necessary to completely disassemble a perfectly functional minke, humpback, or fin whale.
Once the whale has been speared with an explosive harpoon by one of the kill ships, it is transferred to the Nisshin, whereupon it is hauled up onto the deck. A team of specialists eviscerates the whale right then and there, all the while holding up signs with asinine messages like “We are conducting scientific research,” just in case there’s a Greenpeace or Sea Shepherd helicopter around.
Don't worry -- they're scientists
The whalers transform the carcass into hundreds of bricks of whale meat, which are then frozen in a specially designed refrigeration unit. The ship rinses and repeats, and when it has fulfilled its quota, it transports its illicit gains over seven thousand miles of ocean, from the Antarctic coast back to Japan. Minus the infinitesimal percentage claimed by the scientific research program, the whale meat is either sold on the open market or purchased and held in deep storage by various appendages of the Japanese government.
It’s difficult for many Americans, Australians, and Europeans to not see whaling as an inherently evil activity. Numerous western cultures have a sort of reverence for these gentle giants. We admire their playful, intelligent nature, and spend our hard-earned dollars to head out to sea in little skiffs in the hope of seeing one or two whales breach nearby, sending small geysers of mucus and salt water skyward as they break the surface.
Why are you picking on me?
Still, it’s important to realize that this respect for whales is both cultural and recent. The United States was a major whaling nation up until the early 20th century, and some would argue that just because we Americans have some new-found appreciation for these animals doesn’t mean that there’s any kind of intrinsic reason why a whale merits more consideration than, say, a hagfish.
It’s in this spirit of equality that many Japanese, as well as numerous residents of other whaling nations such as Iceland and Norway, see these animals. There’s nothing special about a whale that disqualifies it from being dinner. What is the difference, one might ask, between a whale and some big fish?
I mean, well, yeah, sure, they’ve got lungs, and a complex evolutionary history, and an intricate social network… oh, and faculties for speech and song, and a larger cranial capacity than humans, and even a fourth cerebral lobe that’s unique to cetaceans, the purpose of which we haven’t even begun to understand… but besides all that, what’s the difference?
So bear with me for a moment and let’s assume that there is no inherent reason why whales merit more respect than any other life-form. Is that reason enough let the Japanese whaling industry off the hook?
Maybe if I have a half-off sale...
Well, no. See, we still have to contend with the fact that whale meat has been falling out of favor in Japan for decades, and that the government uses tax revenue to subsidize not only its production, but the consumption of whale meat as well. Moreover, Tokyo has been implicated in any number of vote-buying scandals at the International Whaling Commission, which has caused even more humiliation for the Japanese leadership. So why do they do it? The scientific excuse is as bogus as they come, and even the strict economic argument makes no sense when the losses are put alongside the gains. What’s the reasoning here?
The fact is that behind the sham of scientific research and beyond the crude excuse of simple profit lies a deeper truth, a miasma of old neuroses and insecurities that bedevil anti-whaling efforts and lash the albatross of this anachronistic industry to the necks of the Japanese leadership. The awful truth of the matter is that whaling has virtually nothing to do with whales. In fact, whaling is more about all the other animals swimming in the ocean – especially tuna.
Mouths to feed
We’ve already established that a fishing nation may or may not discriminate between whales and fish based on its cultural value system. If said nation does not do so, then a whale is, for all intents and purposes, a very big fish. With that in mind, consider the following:
Japan is an extremely densely populated island nation, with nearly 200 million people in an area the size of the state of California. It has little arable land and traditionally takes the lion’s share of its protein from the ocean. Japan is also wealthy nation with a strong middle class, as well as the world’s largest consumer of seafood per capita. A tremendous amount of Japanese GDP is reliant on the seafood industry due to unflagging consumer demand. As such, Japanese companies must be able to access oceanic resources with as little interference as possible.
Without a cultural reason to discriminate between whales and fish, Japanese leadership can easily interpret multinational opposition to whaling as a precursor to similar efforts that would address other, more valuable (and more endangered) species – such as bluefin tuna. The Japanese bluefin tuna complex is a massive global enterprise worth billions of dollars, and it dwarfs the whaling industry by orders of magnitude.
A whale-heavy Diet
Efforts to protect or manage whale stocks are therefore seen as the ominous foreshadowing of a world where Japanese fleets wouldn’t necessarily be free to ransack the oceans as they pleased. This idyllic vision is, of course, anathema to the policymakers in Tokyo.
Add this to the fact that the men in power (and it is men, overwhelmingly) in the Diet are the same who spent their formative years in the unfortunate era just after World War II where food security really was an issue in Japan. People were starving in the streets; Japan’s infrastructure and traditional social networks had been eradicated by the twin tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was at this point that the American occupational force introduced large-scale whaling to the Japanese as a manner of providing protein to the hungry. Whale meat was used in school lunches, government meal programs, and other subsidized institutions. One could argue that at the time, the consumption of whale meat actually helped to beat back starvation and to invigorate a populace that was in the grip of malnutrition.
But that was then. This is now, and the Japanese are healthy and wealthy. Whales aren’t important anymore. The principles of sovereignty and food security, however, still are.
Thou shalt not cross
So a line is drawn in the sand. The Japanese government will fight the battle here, with whales, so no precedent is set for tuna, or for eel, or for crabs and urchin. Never again shall Japan face the humiliation of starvation, and never shall the outside world again be allowed to interfere with Japan’s sovereign right to exploit the oceans in order to feed its people. And if a few whales have to die in order to protect this status quo, well, so be it. Right?
Wrong.
This is unacceptable. Whales are dying, and I’m not objecting because I think whales are special, or because I think that the Japanese need to be more like Americans, or anything like that. This is not a racial issue, so anyone who’s planning to come at me with some bogus “you’re a racist” argument, just give it up right now. It’s a contrived, tangential distraction, and you know it. (Seriously. I’m a sushi blogger, for God’s sake.)
It's over
No, I object because these whales are being slaughtered simply to fuel a political pissing contest that has nothing to do with them. They don’t die in the name of science, or cultural preservation, or even the dollar and the yen. No, these whales die to appease a small group of powerful old men, riddled with insecurities, whose fear of economic disenfranchisement and aversion to political humiliation is apparently more important than the lives of these magnificent animals. They die so the Japanese government can continue to deny the fact that if we’re all going to live on this planet, and if we’re going to save the ocean, we’re going to have to work together.
End whaling now.
Tags: antarctica, bluefin, diet, fin, flensing, food security, greenpeace, hagfish, harpoon, humpback, inoshima, international whaling commission, iwc, japan, maru, minke, nisshin maru, Norway, sanctuary, Science and Rankings, sea shepherd, sovereignty, united states, whale, whaling, world war, yushin
Open wide
Sharks? I hear they eat people.
I hear they’re vicious, blood-thirsty death machines bereft of qualms or conscience, living only to feed, sowing terror in the hearts of beach bunnies and surfer dudes everywhere.
Best get rid of ‘em.
Oh, and something else: you know those funny things that stick out from their bodies? Those cartilaginous ridges that help them to turn, accelerate, and maneuver in the water? The ones without which they wouldn’t be able to function? The ones with an off-putting chewy texture, virtually no flavor, and only the most dubious gastronomic appeal?
I hear they make a damn fine soup.
Because of nonsense like this, sharks have been in our cross-hairs for decades. Due to a combination of unjustified fears and an insatiable appetite for shark fins in east Asia, it’s been an absolute bloodbath. We kill tens of millions of sharks every year. A countless number of them die on tuna longlines, ending their lives as ignominious tick marks on a bycatch report that no one ever sees. Many are killed by fishermen and aquaculturists as a part of “predator control” programs. Some are taken by recreational anglers that simply want the thrill of the fight.
But most of them? Most of them die for their fins.
On the chopping block
The global shark finning fleet is a vast network of hundreds of vessels that operates as countless independent cells, terrorizing sharks from the Red Sea to the Caribbean, from the icy coasts of Greenland to the Cape of Good Hope. Dozens of species are targeted solely for their fins, which can be exchanged for buckets of cash in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other centers of the trade. Shark finners catch the sharks on lines or in nets and haul them to the surface. Once the animals are immobilized, the finners dismember the sharks with machetes or similar implements. The hapless creatures are then either chopped into steaks or callously tossed overboard to bleed to death as they sink into the deeps.
Shark fins are coveted due to their alleged medicinal value. When purified and injected, shark cartilage has been linked to an antiangiogenic effect (blood vessels shrinking away from the injected area.) This is particularly interesting in the realm of tumors and cancer treatment. The link between such an effect and a bowl of boiled shark fins in broth, however, is theoretical at best.
Just dying for some soup
Sadly, the unproven nature of shark fin’s medicinal status hasn’t hindered demand in the slightest. Bowls of shark fin soup can fetch over $100 each, and the Hong Kong market alone handles over 3000 tons of shark fin every year. All the while, shark populations across the planet are crashing – some have decreased by 90% or more.
Thankfully, governments are starting to wake up to the reality of the situation.
In March of this year, the United States House of Representatives passed the Shark Conservation Act, which would amend both the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to improve the conservation of sharks. Unfortunately, this bill is now tied up in committee in the Senate.
Just this week, Scotland enacted legislation that will prohibit all shark finning in Scottish waters. While this is not the comprehensive fishing ban that is necessary to truly protect the animals, it is a tremendous step in the right direction, and will hopefully send signals to the European Union that shark conservation is a critical issue.
Toribiong: Shark Savior
Last month, Johnson Toribiong, the President of Palau, announced a ban on all forms of shark fishing anywhere in Palauan waters. Henceforth, he proclaimed, his entire country would be a shark sanctuary. Palau is the first country in the world to take such progressive action.
So how can we continue to turn the tide and save these incredible creatures?
1) Boycott companies like Seagate that try to legitimize shark finning.
Shark fin isn’t just sold in Asia. Believe it or not, you can find it in markets all over the world — largely because it is camouflaged by gel caps and a white plastic bottle. Seagate, a supplement company, renders shark fins into powder, hides them under a childproof cap, and markets the resulting product to natural food stores. The actions of this company — which actually has the audacity to proudly proclaim itself “the only producer of [powdered shark fin cartilage] in the world” — cannot be tolerated. I encourage you to contact the company directly, at 1-888-505-GATE.
Oh, and when they tell you “No, we’re not taking sharks for their fins, it’s actually a byproduct of a food fishery” — just ask them what part of the shark is worth the most. Then feel free to lambaste them for supporting an unmanaged, unregulated shark fishery that targets diminishing stocks off the coast of Baja California.
Let's be clear
2) Avoid buying seafood from grocers that sell shark.
Incredibly, some major US seafood retailers still sell shark and shark products. Publix, Giant Eagle, H.E.B., and Supervalu (the company which operates as Albertson’s, Cub Foods, Lucky, Shaw’s, and many other regional banners) are all known to sell shark in some locations.
3) Support political initiatives that promote shark protection.
The United States and Europe are moving forward, but not quickly enough. We need to demand that the US Senate to ratify the Shark Conservation Act, and the European Union needs to incorporate the Scottish example into its overall fishing policy.
4) Go to Palau.
No, I can’t afford it either, but it’s still important to mention. Palau is a small and relatively impoverished country; it is making tremendous strides towards sustainable ocean stewardship, but there are certainly grumbles about the costs of such behavior in the short run. Anything we can do to inject dollars into the Palauan economy would help to reward these progressive decisions and to support current leadership.
Paradise indeed
It’s comforting to see us finally throwing off the anachronistic sharks-are-bad misconception. We’ve come a long way in that respect. Movies like Sharkwater are changing the way that we think about sharks by transforming them from monstrous to magnificent. Even the creator of Jaws, Peter Benchley, has done a tremendous amount of work supporting shark conservation efforts and rebuilding the image of these animals in the public eye.
So let’s make use of this progress. Sharks are mysterious, charismatic creatures – why are we tolerating the cruel barbarity of finning?
Stop the slaughter. Get shark products out of our markets. Demand more shark sanctuaries and marine protected areas so these creatures can thrive. If we can do that, well, we may just save them after all.
Tags: albertson's, antiangiogenic, benchley, bycatch, cartilage, fin, finning, giant eagle, hong kong, jaws, johnson, medicinal, palau, peter, publix, scotland, seagate, senate, shark, sharkwater, toribiong
