shark finning | Michael Weening: a few pictures

We used Sam’s Tours to get out to the Rock Islands, home to Jellyfish Lake and The Milky Way. They are based in a cove, beside the fishermen.

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As we left the cove I asked about the anchored ships and the sunk ship; they are illegal fishing ships often from Indonesia, out to fish the waters and many out shark fining in the first shark reserve in the world. If you do not know about the terrible, cruel mass butchery of sharks that is feeding the Asian appetite for shark fin soup, you should watch Sharkwater. After watching it we went straight to the Sea Sheppard website and made a donation as it seems like they are one of the few who are taking on illegal whaling and the shark travesty.

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At least we were lucky during the day. The weather shifted significantly; crazy rain, then sun, then rain, then ….

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One of the attractions of Palau is a place called the Milky Way. Tourist flood to this cove where they collect a white mud for cosmetics. The tour involves diving down, bringing up the white mud, spreading it all over and then jumping in.

The cove is beautiful.

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I will spare the photos of the process, which was unique and fun.

Different cultures have different traditions. I passed this sign the other day in Roppongi Hills and stopped short.

If you have not heard about the process of shark finning, read about it here. A terrible, cruel thing where they catch the shark, cut off it’s fins while it is still alive and then throw it back into the ocean to die a horrible, painful death.

If you are not convinced that this is truly barbaric, this 2 minute video should be enough to turn you off shark fin soup for good. Those big, bad, terrible sharks are disappearing at a rate of 250,000 a day through fishing, finning and as collateral damage from commercial fishing and face extinction if we don’t do something. How will the ocean ecosystem change if one of their top predators disappears?

Barbaric. But then so is tying a dog outside all year long and never giving it attention.