2007-08-30 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: i like sharks. i'm guilty of eating shark steak on rare occassions, but i don't condone the wholesale slaughter of any species (except maybe people...) shark by-products appear in numerous things aside from soup and pills, including makeup, and some of the fish-liver-oils that don't specify the kind of fish. their teeth end up in souvenir shops, and their embryo's in little glass jars alongside them.

2007-08-31 [Byne]: Not all shark teeth come from hunted sharks and such. I have a shark tooth ecklace I made from a tooth I found after a shark dive in the Bahamas with my brother.

2007-08-31 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: many are washed up on shore, and shed naturally, but just as many are taken from sharks while alive... when they kill the sharks fore their fins, many times, teeth are collected too (and a couple other organs) but largely, the rest of the shark is dumped back into the ocean. i was on a vacation in Florida before i moved here, and watched these yacht-owning fishermen catching sharks, finning them, carving out their jaws and teeth, then dumping the mutilated carcasses back into the swimming area of the campground we were staying at.

2007-09-01 [Byne]: Yep. That is what happens. v_v Saddens me greatly.

2007-09-03 [Byne]: I just saw an incredibly disturbing advertisment on television. There is actually a convention and competition for catching sharks in the USA. The ad was on Spike TV. I semi-vomited in my mouth.

The sharks were portrayed as man-eating killers of whom we have no choice to kill before they kill us. God, humans sicken me. Men in particular, seeing as how generally speaking, it is men who participate in these testosterone-filled hunting games. ._.

2007-09-03 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: i presume they are, as usually, trying to make up for something. why don't they instead beat up the people who are doing it? it's just as macho in the end, and better for the sharks. and sharks really don't like people... and when we trespass in their domain, we have no choice but to play by their rules.

If only people had enough humility to admit that even though we are at the top of the food chain, we are not exempt from it.

I have never held an animal responsible for an injury it inflicted on, me, because in most cases, when an animal hurts/kills a person, it's the person's fault.

2007-09-03 [Byne]: Yup.

2007-11-13 [meme138567]: i think if people would stop throwing trash in the oceans there would be an increase in the population.

2007-11-14 [Byne]: Hell, people need to stop polluting our air as well. o_o

Biggest threat to sharks at the moment = humans over fishing them for no REASON. RAWR. -Gets angry at the people who kill sharks.-

2008-02-19 [Tickle Me Emo]: We've discussed the impact of sharks on the marine ecosystem in my Marine Bio class a lot, and how when they attack humans it's usually just to test whether or not they're edible. Strangely enough, the great white shark isn't the most dangerous to humans. There are much greater incidences of bull shark attacks than great white attacks. Part of that has to do with where the animals feed, but also how aggresive the shark species are.

But the wiki also mentions the conservation of skates and rays, and I thought I might throw out some random trivia... the giant "scallops" that you typically see for sale in grocery stores, etc. aren't necessarily scallops, so much as a round section removed from the fins of a certain species of rays.

Oh, and the whole issue about shark cartilage pills/powder has kind of died off. The pills were really popular when people found out that sharks are very resistant to cancer and other diseases. Capitalists just took advantage of the brief frenzy, but once people realized that whatever repulsed the cancer didn't necessarily exist within the sharks' cartilage, the demand kind of died off.

2008-02-19 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: well, that explains why only certain kinds of "scallops" make me sick, and others do not. I have a shellfish allergy and was puzzled by this for the longest time. the smaller "bay scallops" make me violently sick, while the larger ones don't bother me at all....

2008-02-19 [Tickle Me Emo]: That's probably because they're not what you think they are :P
Kind of weird, no?
But I am sure it's not the universal truth. I'd still be careful...

2008-02-19 [Byne]: Ah...My dad was telling me the story of one of his collegues who went into the fish market in Tokyo, which I think is the largest in the world.

The guy walks into one store and gets confused, because huge steaks are hanging and on display. He was wondering what beef was doing in a fish market. It wasn't fish. It was whale and dolphin. And some shark.

2008-02-20 [Tickle Me Emo]: I thought sharks were considered fish?
But Japanese tend to rely on seafood to make a living. I mean, the fishing of sharks and other endangered species should be allowable, as long as overfishing isn't occurring. Consuption should ideally be lower than reproduction until species return to their pre-fishing numbers, and then the two should be equal.

2008-02-20 [Byne]: Mhm, sharks are fish. But it was mostly whale and dolphin in this store.
Most Japanese don't actually eat whale or dolphin. However, the wa the kill them, is not only illegal, but inhumane. Almost 70% of the worlds fisheries have already collapsed. And countries are unwilling to cut down the amounts of fish that they catch.

2008-02-20 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: of course, too much profit in it yet. Businesses don't give a rats @$$ about conservation, only about how much money they earn. And so long as there are fish in the sea (and river, lakes and streams, etc) fisheries will continue to abuse them. It would be nice if all fisheries converted to ranching, growing captive populations so as not to endanger the wild ones, but that takes a lot of money to start up, and the running expense is exponentially larger than that of a typical fishing business. They won't do that until they have to, and only then as a last resort.

2008-02-20 [Tickle Me Emo]: But currently there are some issues with fish farming, especially at open aquaculture sites. They tend to breed parasites, diseases, and other problems. Not only does this pose health risks to the farmed fish and the people who consume the meat, but it can spread to wild fish that pass within the viscinity. There's this one place in British Columbia where the migratory path of wild salmon passes right by a farm, and they expect the wild salmon population to be decimated within the next couple years.

But then the farms treat the fish with antibiotics, which can also spread to wild populations as well as cause an increase in antibiotic resistance in humans who eat the farmed fish.

So although it might be a good idea to decrease the impact of overfishing, farm fishing methods should probably be refined a little better before we rely on them entirely, especially as they still have a negative impact on wild populations. I know the human demand for fish usually swings toward wild fish. And it's actually pretty easy to tell the difference, because apparently there's food dye in the diet of the farmed fish in order for their flesh to look more appealing in the supermarket. So wild fish actually look paler and (ostensibly) less appealing :p
At least, that's what I heard.

2008-02-21 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: That would make sense, and it would be another expense that would up the cost of farming as well. Antibiotics are almost always a bad thing in agriculture, hence the demand for "100% organic" foods. I think the issue with farming is the sheer number of fish being kept in smaller confines (ponds), usually not running water, essentially sitting around in their own refuse. I seriously doubt many of them filter the water, and that's probably where the antibiotics come into play, as well as other water conditioners and chemicals intended to clean the water in unnatural ways. Because they aren't directly consumed by humans, many of those chemicals may not be regulated by USDA, or FDA, or any similar organizations.

2008-02-21 [Byne]: Ah, Tickle me basically got the main issue there.
you do get the few fishermen who will respect fishing quotas, and restrictions, but there is a need for international agreements. For example, Canada has put a restriction on fishing soho (a type of salmon). However, these are migratory species who often spawn off the coast of Alaska, where they're fished out by the Americans.

And farmed fish = evil. Or rather, farmed salmon = evil.
The fish are not only suseptable to disease, parasites and other issues that involve being kept in small quarters with more fish, but are often genetically modified. The also have a higher fat content, and are less healthy.

And Monochrome, no such thing as 100% organic. The amount of pollutants in the air, the land, and the water, has essentially contaminated every single thing on the planet.

Something interesting --> Sharks are being fished to replace swordfish and other large sail-fish, as there have been new restrictions placed on swordfish. However, there are next to none in regards to sharks.

2008-02-21 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: I don't follow that "organic" junk, but if you notice on the shelves of grocery stores, you see more of it, and there's a lot of demand for the stuff, even though it's outrageously priced. It never fails to amuse me that the "organic" stuff, ice cream for example, is simply the same thing with less ingredients. People are paying extra to have things left out (often preservatives). Sounds backwards until you think about the percentage of their crop the farmers have to sacrifice for abstaining from pesticides.

of course, sharks are man-eating monsters, didn't ya know?
not to mention, sharks, as with other animals, are often killed as a by-product of tuna nets, and tend to be persecuted by the ignorant populace, all in addition to heavy fishing.

Typically, I don't eat fish unless I caught it myself, the good old fashioned way with a rod & reel. Then you know how fresh it is too.

2008-02-21 [Tickle Me Emo]: There are some international agreements in place, such as one protecting a certain species of kelp popular in Japanese cuisine that is harvested off the Alaskan coast, I believe. But still, international cooperation is woefully underemphasized (and I believe it's coho salmon... at least, it probably is if you're talking Alaskan salmon).

The concept of fish farming isn't bad, it just needs to be refined. Fish farming applies to more than just salmon. There are several species that are bred explicitly for eating, and all are susceptible to diseases that occur in that environment.
(and swordfish is actually really good to eat <.< >.>)

Well, preservatives are actually pretty bad for you, so I can understand why people would pay extra for products without them. And when people advertise using the phrase "100% organic," they probably mean that the product was farmed without any pesticides, but don't necessarily refer to byproducts of the environment (or even neighboring farms that do use pesticides).