Another reason why the world, and humans, are disgusting.

I'll be the first person to say that I hate sharks. I'm in fact, terrified of them. When I was younger I would have frequent dreams about being attacked by sharks, and the fear has stayed with me so that when I'm in deep water, whether it's a lake or the ocean, unless I have someone out there with me to distract me, I start to think what could be in the water, and how I wouldn't be able to see it. It brings me to the point of nearly hyperventilating. It's so bad that, even though I have a dream to swim with Dolphins (and wild, not in captivity), and even though I know that where you find dolphins you won't find sharks, and that dolphins will attack sharks, I'm betting it will prevent me from ever going through with that dream. Nonetheless, my obvious fear (which isn't irrational, because people do die from sharks) cannot mask the absolute heartwrenching disgust I felt as I awaited the Survivor Finale tonight.
60 Minutes was running a program on sharks, particularily shark tourism. I guess in some places, you can take a boat out into the ocean, and the team that takes you out will toss blood and assorted fish guts into the water to attract the sharks. Then they climb into cages and descend into the water with the sharks. Some people claim that in doing so, we're trying to domesticate sharks, or that in doing this, we're allowing sharks to associate food with humans, therefore showing a correlation with shark attacks. It makes sense to me. I know from my biology class that sharks aren't exactly dumb, that they do have a well developed brain, and it wouldn't surprise me if they learned to make that connection (and for the record yes, I did dissect a shark, and yes, every person in my lab and the other lab had their own shark to dissect, but this was in the interest of education. It's still wrong, but believe me, it's not as wrong as what I'm about to tell you.)
I guess in China, you can get a kind of soup in resturants. I think they said it's called Shark Fin soup and it sounds exactly like what it is. For a $100 (US) you can buy yourself a bowl of soup containing the fin(s) of a shark. Like everything, how they get the fins, is the disgusting part. Boats go out into the ocean and catch these sharks. They haul them up onto the boat, hold them down, and while the shark is still 100% completely alive, proceed to cut off their fins. When this is done, they simply toss the shark back into the ocean where it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, unable to do anything but lie there and horribly die. It's absolutely disgusting, and when I was watching, my jaw dropped and despite my fear of sharks, I was more horrified at the thought that humans can be so cruel, just to make money.

The sad thing is? It's illegal to do this, but resturants can charge this ridiculous price, people will pay it, so the risk is worth it. It makes it really hard for me to embrace other cultures when they're this inhumane.

You can read the article here.

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