EXCLUSIVEFEATURE
Tracing the Shark Fin
By Farhan Shah
From Ocean to Wedding Plate
Shark fins are quite
the emotive issue in
Singapore, with both
camps slinging harsh
words and misguided
facts at each other. In
an exclusive feature,
we talk to people in
the seafood industry
and the environmental
crusaders to discover
the true story. What we
found will genuinely
surprise you.
You have been lied to and misled all this time.
I kid you not. Do you know how you’ve always
thought that the fins you’ve been eating at
wedding dinners was forcibly removed from a
group of sharks before they are thrown back
into the ocean, still alive, only to slowly die?
That story is as true as the tale of Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves.
“Most of the videos that you see is either
really old footage, we’re talking 10 to 15
years ago, or deliberately construed. The
environmentalists pay a poor fisherman
from the Philippines to rip the fin off from
the shark so that they can film it,” declares
Executive Officer Anthony Ciconte from the
Southern Shark Industry Alliance.
But, perhaps I should start from the beginning.
A large number of Singapore’s shark fins
come from Australia and the most common
shark species fished in the land Down Under
is the gummy shark. The fishermen – shark
or other species – are governed by a strict set
of regulations, most of which are designed
to keep the marine population at healthy,
sustainable levels.
Top:
The shark was
caught using a
method called
gill netting, which
reduces a lot of
by-catch.
Right:
Seafood supplier
Spiros Argyros
holds up the body
of a blue shark.
One of the most hotly-debated but
grudgingly-accepted measures is the quota
system. Every fishing boat is given a certain
amount of tonnage of fish that they can catch
per trip. If a boat returns to land with far
more sharks than they’re allowed, the owners
suffer massive penalties.
The law also commands artisanal shark
fishermen to bring back their ocean catch
whole i.e. for every shark body that they
have on board, they must also have a fin. A
fisherman that breaks the law will not only
be fined an amount dependent on how many
fins are missing but will also lose his fishing
licence. It’s basically career suicide.
The fishing regulations are watertight,
impermeable and constricting, but they have
also been very effective. According to Ciconte,
“the shark stocks are in the best shape that
they’ve ever been for the past 30 years”, as
proven by the consistent rise in the gummy
shark quota over the past decade.
Everything on or in the shark, from the pectorals to
even the bone, is used for pet food, jerky and medicine.
14
Family & Life • Aug 2014
On the other side of the finning argument
stands an environmental juggernaut with
arguably only pure motives. According to the
CEO of the World Wildlife Fund Singapore
Elaine Tan, “the world’s oceans will be
depleted of fish stocks by 2048 at the rate
we are fishing”. As for sharks (and most
other marine species actually), the main
enemy is widespread illegal, unreported and
unregulated fishing. Sharks are particularly
Fisherman Jimmy Pappas
and his two colleagues
display their catch.