i know it's considered one of the "great chinese culinary treasures" but it is eating something to extinction and destruction of an ecosystem...
ultimately, the people who rant about it being a "chinese custom and tradition" will find themselves standing beside the Japanese who insist on whaling...
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Fins for sale Galapagos sharks are under threat due to growing demand for £100-a-bowl soup in Chinese restaurants
By Stephen Khan
Published: 25 June 2006 One of the world's most cherished and fragile ecosystems is threatened by the growing popularity of a delicacy being served in some of Britain's leading restaurants.
Elaborate soup dishes made with sharks' fins cost more than £100 a bowl, but that has not prevented them from becoming common on the menus of upmarket Chinese eateries.
And that could spell disaster for the delicate balance of wildlife in the Galapagos Islands, the Pacific archipelago made famous by Charles Darwin, who based his ground-breaking theory of evolution on the diversity of wildlife he found there. Now, though, that diversity is at risk.
Despite bans on the trade in fins, conservationists believe that in the past five years the fins of more than 1.7 million sharks have been exported from Ecuador - and the Galapagos region accounted for more than 80 per cent of those.
(for the whole article, click here =>
The Independent)
seriously these people. tradition and culture? my foot. its all about the $