The Dorsal Fin

The Virgin Group’s Richard Branson and former NBA star Yao Ming have recently been featured in the media speaking out against the consumption of shark fin soup. The UK’s Telegraph shared the video above on their YouTube channel which features previously seen footage of Branson swimming with whale sharks and speaking out about threatened species. The end of the video features Ming’s latest WildAid PSA targeting shark fin soup consumption.

The latest pro-shark video from Blue Sphere Media and WildAid features Richard Branson swimming with whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) off of Mexico’s Isla Mujeres in order to raise awareness about protection of the species. Isla Mujeres has become a well-known aggregation point for whale sharks in the summer months, where hundreds of whale sharks gather each year to feed in the area’s nutrient rich waters.

While Branson refers to whale sharks as an “endangered species,” it should be noted that the IUCN actually list the species as “vulnerable” on the Red List, which is the next category below “endangered.”

Branson also tends to focus on the sharks being the victims of finning. However, the whale shark has been targeted in the past not only for its fins but also its meat and massive internal organs. For example, a recent feature on whale sharks in Kenya noted that the liver from a whale shark is a valuable commodity to fishermen. The IUCN also notes that whale shark populations have been depleted in some areas by harpoon fisheries and unintentional capture (or bycatch) by traditional fisheries.

Wild Aid has recently posted several animal conservation PSA videos to their YouTube Channel, including an English version of a shark conservation PSA above, which features 1984 Olympic gold medalist (10m platform diving), Zhou Jihong. The original version (posted a few years ago) of this PSA was in Mandarin and focused on the “duty” of humans to protect sharks and the world’s ocean ecosystems. Wild Aid has produced several shark conservation PSA videos featuring prominent Chinese athletes aimed at curbing demand in the Chinese shark fin soup market.

The Yao Ming shark fin soup PSA produced by WildAid, reported on last week, is now online. Check out the English version of the commercial below.

WildAid has a reputation for creating some very effective PSA for animal conservation. I am really glad to see that they are using the “up to 70 million sharks” figure as opposed to the “100 million magic number.” The “up to 70 million” statistic is based on the high-end estimate from Shelley Clarke’s research on global estimates of shark catches, which estimated that between 26 million and 72 million sharks are killed commercially each year.

According to the article Chinese belly-gods warn: Eating shark fins to have ecological, health consequences, not only does the shark fin market pose a devastating risk to marine ecosystems, it may also pose a health risk to its consumers. Steve Trent of Wild Aid is pushing for promoting awareness about dangers of shark fin consumption in China, the world’s largest consumer of shark fins. Part of this awareness campaign includes Public Service Announcements like the one below (Warning: contains brief finning imagery)

According to Trent,

"Research shows they contain heavy metals such as mercury, which can cause damage to the nervous system and male infertility."

According to the article, Trent said that most Chinese shark fin consumers were not aware of the ecological effects of the shark fin industry. He also noted that many consumers did not even that shark fin delicacies actually contained the fins. This is due to the literal translation of &quotyu chi" meaning "fish fin". Due to this confusion, some consumers assumed they were eating highly nutritional domestic fish. Trent encourages responsible fishing practices and goes on to say that the "hunting of sharks should be carried out in a sustainable way, restraint should be exercised in consumption of the cartilaginous fish, and the practice of hunting sharks merely for fins should be banned."