My 7-year-old is currently enamored of sharks. Not the clever billiard players epitomized by Paul Newman (RIP) in the "Color of Money," but the toothy, fearsome, swimming creatures depicted so realistically in "Jaws."
We visited an area aquarium awhile back and for reasons I still don't understand but completely respect, it was love at first sight.
Currently working on a shark-themed project that involves reading, writing, research and original artwork, my daughter has also unearthed the gruesome truth about sharks on the verge of extinction largely because of a practice known as FINNING.
Finning is the cutting off of a shark's fins for use in sharkfin soup, a delicacy in places like China.
The shark -- any species will do -- is captured, mutilated while still alive, and thrown back into the water completely defenseless. Unable to swim, it sinks like a stone to the ocean floor.
Its death may take anywhere from several hours to several days.
Why, my daughter asked indignantly, would anyone want to eat soup so badly that they would do this to a shark?
Why, indeed.
Sadly, she's now starting to wrestle with the same questions that began to bedevil me back when I was about her age. A neighborhood boy caught a water moccasin in a drainage ditch near our street, stretched it out full length upside down on the sidewalk for us all to see and then quickly slit it from head to tail with a knife while the animal was still alive. Inside its belly was a large egg.
I was horrified. Not because a dangerous snake was only feet away from me but because I realized that snake hadn't hurt anyone and yet it was being destroyed for the heck of it.
That initial horror later dulled into a deep and abiding sadness from which I guess I've never fully recovered. But it also spurred me on to various volunteer and paid jobs working with animals as well as conducting letter-writing campaigns to everyone from pharmaceutical companies to elected officials urging them to stop one form or another of animal cruelty.
Somewhere along the way I became a vegetarian although in the spirit of full disclosure I do own a couple pair of leather shoes. Oh, and my childproof furniture is also upholstered in cowhide.
Regardless, some of that old fire stirred again in me last night when my wide-eyed, beautiful child with a heart as big as the world itself set her dainty jaw, furrowed her brow and said, "Finning is just wrong and it has GOT to stop!"
Can one child make a difference? No, but as I learned long ago one child (or one person of any age) multiplied by many more very often does sway opinion.
Type in "finning" online and see how many different campaigns are up and running on behalf of sharks. Lots of kids have jumped on the bandwagon, too, perhaps because children do see things so much more clearly than the grownups. If it's mean, it's wrong. Period.
Those of you who live locally and who know our family, I ask you to take time out to sign Julia's "No Finning" petition the next time you see her. The signatures will be forwarded to the Shark Research Institute in NJ for compilation and mailing to governments worldwide in an effort to outlaw this barbaric practice.
Sharks, as we've learned, are a vital part of the marine ecosystem. They keep various populations in balance so that there is enough food, enough habitat for everyone. Their only enemy is man.
You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being attacked by a shark.
More than 100 MILLION sharks are killed every year worldwide and roughly 15 various species are on the brink of extinction.
Julia is right. This has got to stop.
Just say no to "finning."
For more information on this issue, visit the websites of Sea Shepherd International, The Cousteau Society, or the Shark Research Institute.
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