I understand that each country's law regarding shark finning is different but can anyone tell me if there are laws against the actual trade of shark fins or having shark fin soup on a menu in Canada or the United States? I would hope that local establishments are not serving this and if they are I hope we can urge people not to give these places our business.
shareI was at an advance screening of the movie in Halifax, and the director Rob Stewart, was answering questions after the film. He said that there is a store in Toronto where you can go in and buy shark fins. And also he asked people not to support the restaurants that serve shark fin soup. So I'm pretty sure that its legal in Canada.
shareIn the United States it's illegal to cut the fins off and discard the body ( but fins can sold if the rest of the shark is brought back to port and also utilized) and I saw an internet documentarty about shark fin soup that was being served at a Chinatown restuarant in the US (in Los Angeles I think). I don't know if it's legal to sell just the fins in a store, it might be hard to prove that they were bought from a legally-landed shark.
shareIt's legal in both countries... unfortunately.
However, as per the previous post it is illegal to discard the remains of the shark without making use of the whole shark...
However, it is also not illegal to import Shark fins.
The other major problem is Shark Cartilage being sold over the counter in Health food stores all over both countries and the world.
Shark's any part do not possess any "healing" or therapeutic, or medicinal properties what so ever.
You want to help get the word out about this movie... share some of these links and spread the word.
http://sharkwater.com
http://myspace.com/sharkwater
http://youtube.com/sharkwater
I live in Canada and I could walk 4 blocks and order shark fin dumplins right now. But now that I've seen this movie, I will never do that again. I do see shark meat (not fins) at the grocery store, so hopefully the stuff around here is collected legally. But since the number of shark is so depleted, I think Canada should stop all fishing of sharks. We have tonnes of other things to eat here, there's no need to eat sharks.
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+++TV is gooder than books.+++
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