Limiting/Banning of shark fin trade in Singapore
- by: Keith Chua
- recipient: Singapore Government
Singapore is one of the main suppliers of shark fins after Hong Kong, together with countries like Taiwan, Indonesia and the United States. Dried shark fins are shipped to Singapore from oceans around the world and the fins are then exported overseas. 72 million sharks are killed every year for their fins,which are made into soup. When these sharks are caught, many of them have their fins cut off and their carcasses are dumped back into the sea. That is known as finning and is illegal. This mass killing of sharks has resulted in at least 180 species of sharks being considered as threatened this year, up from the 15 shark species considered threatened in 1996. Many of the Chinese must have sharks' fin soup as a dish in their wedding banquets, causing the demand for shark's fin to rise. By banning the trade in Singapore, there would be less suppliers of shark fins, hence less sharks would be killed. The amount of sharks this ban could save would allow the sharks to live in peace in the waters. With reduced numbers of sharks killed, the sharks would have a higher chance of being able to continue living on this planet with us. If these huge predators are fished to extinction, the whole marine ecosystem would collapse. Please help by signing this petition. It only takes a minute to do so and by doing this, a huge number of sharks would be saved if we suceed.
We the undersigned, hope that Singapore, one of the world's largest shark fin trader, would ban, or at least limit the amount of shark fin being traded. Over 72 million sharks are being killed annually for their fins. There are over 180 species of sharks that are considered "threatened" now and if the number of sharks slaughtered does not decrease, they would most likely become extinct in the near future. Sharks arent able to reproduce quickly, no matter how hard they try to. But you can help to ban or limit the trade on shark fin so that they can live on among us. We all know well enough how brutally and mercilessly the sharks are killed, most of them only for their fins. Even as humans, we should not be doing this. Sharks have lived through multiple mass extinction periods before even humankind existed, and cause less deaths than elephants. Humans are very rarely eaten by sharks and those who have been bitten have shown that sharks never swallow or sever any flesh from the body. If they have never purposely harmed humans, why are we doing so to them? What gives us the right to massacre such ancient, majestic underwater beasts that have never been threatened by extinction until the past decade? By allowing the shark fin trade, we are encouraging the continued hunting of sharks. Many people are trying their very best to protect the sharks from extinction and the shark fin trade is constantly making their work harder.
Thank you for your time taken to read this and I hope the government would consider banning or at least limiting shark fin trade in Singapore to prevent so many sharks from being killed.
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