Sharkfins sold from shop in Chinatown, Bangkok.
The
Sharks of Thailand
By Lars Bindholt
SHARKS ARE ENDANGERED
Home Links Where Species Phi Phi Islands Observations
Sharkfins sold from shop in
Chinatown, Bangkok.
Everywhere in the world
the number of sharks are fast declining. Also in Thailand we have seen this
decline. This is mainly due to overfishing. The recent rise in prices on shark
fins on the Chinese market for use in shark fin soup, has made the situation
very bad for sharks.
Even in marine national parks and sanktuaries there is a huge
illegal fishery. It is very hard to enforce the regulations out at sea, and in
many areas in the third world corruption is very big. Just look at the situation
around Galapagos and Cocos island in the Pacific right now.
Sharks wasted at Songkhla Harbour
Sharks has a very slow reproduktive
rate and are not capable of coping with a large long lasting fishery. If we
don't find a way to regulate and inforce regulations the perspectives are very
grim for these top predators.
You yourself should as a small help to the troubled sharks avoid buying shark
produkts as sharkfin soup, shark
steaks, shark jaws and shark cartilagineous
tablets (they have no proven effect) etc.
Also you can spread out the knowledge of these animals to avoid unnescesary fear.
Shark attacks are extremely rare when you take into consideration how many
people all over the world are using the sea every day swimming, diving and
surfing.
Links to this topic:
http://www.sharkwater.com/education.htm
http://www.shark.ch/Preservation/Facts/finning.html
http://www.saveallsharks.com/3001.html
http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-050606-1.html