GALAPAGOS, Ecuador (26 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 €150 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 theory of evolution on the wildlife diversity he found there. But now 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 80pc of those. Traditionally, shark's fin soups were the dish of choice for wealthy Chinese and were served at weddings. But the spreading popularity of specialist Chinese food has seen demand rocket. Shark's fin is now the star ingredient in some of Britain's top Chinese restaurants, despite adding little in the way of flavour. Widely regarded as one of the finest restaurants in the UK, Kai of Mayfair, in London, unveiled its Buddha Jumps Over the Wall soup last year. At €157, it includes Japanese flower mushroom, sea cucumber, dried scallops, chicken, Hunan ham, pork, ginseng and, of course, shark's fin. | | For the status hungry, shark fin soup is an acquired distaste. Many sharks are illegally 'finned', as the rest of the animal is worth little. This sees the shark lifted from the water by fishermen who cut off the fins and then plunge the bloodied animal back into the water, where it slowly bleeds to death. Graham Watkins of the Charles Darwin Foundation warned: "They are predators at the top of the ecosystem." Evidence suggested numbers were in free fall, and that would have implications for thousands of other species in the area. SOURCE - Indpendent News Service |
