“I couldn’t write Jaws today. The extensive new knowledge of sharks would make it impossible for me to create, in good conscience, a villain of the magnitude and malignity of the original. …If I have one hope, it is that we will come to appreciate and protect these wonderful animals before we manage, through ignorance, stupidity and greed, to wipe them out altogether.” (Jaws author Peter Benchley)
Like many impressionable children (and adults) back in 1975, I can vividly recall leaving the theater with my parents after seeing Jaws. I was freshly burdened with a terrifying fear of sharks in the abstract and a very real apprehension of our upcoming trip to the beach. More than a few Americans warily stepped into the waters during that summer of the shark. With lifeless and sinister black eyes, sharks were (are) viewed as cold and efficient killing-machines. And now, some thirty-five years later, I am writing an article meant to inspire sympathy for the ocean’s greatest hunter. Like other apex predators, especially ones 400-million-years-old, sharks should not need advocates. But they do because human depravity seemingly has no limits. Annually, sharks are being slaughtered by the millions for a status symbol: shark-fin soup.
Shark meat is a centuries-old delicacy in Asia (China, especially, although it does appear on American menus). It is expensive (a small bowl can cost $100) and inefficient (a single wedding can require fins from 40 sharks). Once an exclusive luxury for the elite, it has now become accessible (and desirable) to a vast new economic class in China. A food director at Beijing’s Gloria Plaza, says (The Globe and Mail, 08/27/03), “Ten years ago, it wasn’t very popular. Now it’s a way to show how rich you are. If you have a top VIP dinner, this soup is big face.” A university student: “No one I know really, really likes it. It’s more to show your status or show respect to your guests.” A computer engineer notes, “I would say 80 to 90 percent of people are ordering it out of obligation. I’ll only eat it if it can’t be avoided.” Shark meat smells (it may have to be boiled and marinated for days) and has no exceptional nutritional value. Beyond social etiquette, many also believe in its healing or aphrodisiac properties, and it is even sold in pill form.
The hunt is stunningly devoid of mercy. The hooked fishing-lines extend miles through the ocean and indiscriminately destroy all who take the bait. Once retrieved, some sharks are still living. There, on the boat, their fins are hacked off, and they are dumped back into the sea. Bleeding and unable to swim, they suffer a terrifying death. And this, for less than 5% of their bodies.
The mythology surrounding sharks has thwarted compassion towards them. Commonly viewed as maleficent manslayers, sharks, in fact, are not particularly interested in human flesh. Annually, less than five people are killed by shark bites (crocodiles kill more in one year than sharks have in the last century), mostly due to blood loss and not because a Jaws devoured them. People regularly swim among sharks without being harmed, and attacks are usually cases of mistaken identity (likeness to a seal). Nevertheless, a savage practice that threatens ecological balance in the oceans (some shark species have been decimated by 90%) continues virtually unabated. And all for a bowl of soup.
