Catch data from 2012 to 2019 reveal shark deaths from fishing increased from 76 million to 80 million per year. Researchers stress that more action is needed to save threatened species.
    • Rachelhazideas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      10 months ago

      Shark fin soup.

      I had it as a kid before I knew better. It’s nothing special and just a status symbol at this point. There are so many other things that can substitute it and it’s wild that people still pay for it.

    • Lvxferre@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Why?

      Theoretically for the meat, sold mostly in Brazil, Uruguay, and Latin Europe*, at a comparatively low price for seafood. In practice for the fins, sold mostly in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and China.

      What makes it worse is that Brazilian norms are notoriously sloppy on what you can sell as “cação” (shark or ray meat), including 40 species, quite a few of them vulnerable, and a lot of times the person buying it has no way to know. And if you tell people “only buy cação if the species is listed, otherwise you might be eating a threatened species”, they’ll usually whine and tell you the equivalent of “I dun unrurrstand, y buy dat one? Dis one is cheaper lol lmao”.

      *the link is in Portuguese but I can translate it if anyone so desires.

      • thefartographer@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        10 months ago

        Lulz. And to make horrible tasting soup out of a specific set of body parts and then letting them suffer without their fins.

        For more amusing human antics, check out Nestle and baby formula in third world countries. Ain’t we just so kwazy???

        /s

    • useful_lemming@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      In addition to the reasons already mentioned, there is also a probability that the corporations operating the trawlers see sharks and other predators as competition, especially since their yields are dropping.