Texas, a center of U.S. shark fin trade, enacts ban on practice

[Little Tich]

Source: Reuters

A ban on the shark fin trade took effect in Texas on Friday, a move environmental groups hope will end the state's status as one of the main U.S. centers for the product prized as a delicacy in Chinese cuisine.

Texas became the first state on the Gulf of Mexico coast to enact a ban on the trade and joins 10 other states, mostly on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, to prohibit a practice that conservationists blame for a global decline in sharks.

Texas had seen a 240 percent increase in its trade in shark fins since 2010 when states including California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and New York enacted bans in their states, according to Oceana, an international advocacy group to protect the world's oceans.

Shark finning is illegal in U.S. waters but fins can still be exported and imported out of most U.S. states, it said.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-sharkfin-idUSKCN0ZH5UB

[Feeling the Bern]

1. Everyone here in Asia tells me Shark fin soup is really good, but I can't bring myself to eat it

What they do to those poor fish is sick. . .rip them out of the water, cut off the fins, throw the fish back in the water and let it sink and drown.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

3. i think the fin is bland

the soup carries the flavor

and we are a cruel species

[Judi Lynn]

4. So brutal, and so stupid.Conscientious people need to start boycotting everything connected to this.

When enough people are awakened to what actually happens to make that stuff, it will acquire such an abhorrent image it will eventually stop selling because everyone finally sees the light.

Why would anyone want to cause even more suffering? There's far more than enough to go around.

[Just reading posts]

6. I tried it about 20 years ago....didn't see what the fuss was all about.

It was good, but it wasn't that good.

[Midnight Writer]

2. You're kidding me, right? Texas passes a law to protect the environment?

[kentauros]

5. We're not 100% bad here, despite DU's biased consensus.

Even republicans sometimes do something right every now and then

[Feeling the Bern]

8. Cruz, Bush, Abbott, Perry, Patrick, Gohmert, Hutchison. . .naw, DU has nothing to use when we slam

Tex-ass. It's just bias and Texas hatred.

The only reason we have Texas is because Americans illegally immigrated to Mexico, refused to follow Santa Anna's laws, rebelled and the 12 years later, James Polk performed his Great American Landgrab in the Mexican/American War.

[Hoppy]

12. The primary Santa Anna law that they refused to follow was, no slavery.

The re-annexation of Texas was needed or we wouldn'ta had several good movies.

[Feeling the Bern]

14. They also refused to follow the laws to become Catholic and learn Spanish

1 out of 3. Good work.

[kentauros]

15. The only reason "we" have America is because Europeans illegally migrated over.

That point is moot and useless. What exists is what we have now. We only ask for some respect and not to be judged solely on the bad news that comes from the state. I know that's tall order for DU, but it is a sincere request.

[Feeling the Bern]

16. Mother is 100% Mohawk. They not only illegally migrated, but stole the land and

wiped out centuries of language, religion, culture and tradition.

[kentauros]

17. Then you still have "illegal" immigrant blood in you.

You might as well call yourself a self-hating American to avoid being called a hypocrite then.

As I said, that's all moot. The only thing that's important is the present. Holding another's past over their heads as a form of shame does nothing positive, and certainly is easily dismissed as pointless.

My one 100% sincere request of you, however, is that you edit your profile to let me know where you live (city, state, nation; name unimportant) so that I may also play along in DU's most popular pastime of region-bashing and creating cute insults for their fellow liberals and their families. Because eating our own is so much more productive than working together.

[Feeling the Bern]

18. Right now. . .go ahead. Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Knock yourself out.

You can start the Muslim and Asian bashing with your next post, but I doubt it will last long.

[kentauros]

19. Okay, but it'll take a while to research what I need.

So, as requested, add it to your profile, so that everyone else who also hates DU's penchant for region-bashing can lay into you in my absence. Please also add your home state in the US of A to back up your claim of Native American heritage. That's more important than where you happen to reside now. Your American Home is the issue of this ridiculous region-bashing sub-thread.

[Feeling the Bern]

20. Niagara Falls, New York. Three miles from the Tuscarora Reservation

Mother was adopted and raised in Utica, NY. And before you say anything about my "heritage," my mother is a rape baby. Her biological mother was raped by a friend of hers and put my mother up for adoption before my mother took her first breath.

Now, if you want to bash New York, go right ahead. I will probably agree with everything you say. I don't get butthurt when someone insults my state, home city or region.

[kentauros]

21. I'm not going to say anything about your heritage,

nor am I going to bash your region. I feel it's absolutely stupid and exceptionally short-sighted for Liberals to bash any part of their own country. Bash the politicians if you must bash something, not the entire region from where they hail.

We're all in this together, taking the bad with the good! Otherwise, this would not have ever been the United States of America.

[Feeling the Bern]

22. When the people do something stupid and idiotic, they are fair game too.

Get used to it. Look how people here bash Israel. They don't say Bibi or the Israeli government, they say Israel, which means the people, citizens and even the children in the country.

Get some thicker skin or stay out of political discussions and politics.

[kentauros]

23. Actually, people *do* say "Israeli government" instead of the whole of Israel.

Those are the people who understand the problem is with the government, not the people/country as a whole.

My skin is plenty thick. I am only asking people like yourself to practice kindness instead of meanness. And honestly, it has nothing to do with having a thick skin. It has to do with being a nicer person, no matter what the forum-format or topic.

[mdbl]

10. Ironic they only pass laws to protect sharks

probably because they thought it was from Shark Tank.

[MFM008]

7. only because they have to

Sharks are disappearing.
Everything's disappearing....

[Jnclr89]

9. I'm highly disappointed the US is still involved in the trade

I thought this was a strictly asian trade only. This should have been outlawed here in the States decades ago.

How good could a shark fin taste, isn't it mostly cartilage? I've never had it, but I doubt it has much taste. I assume it's just another asian myth, kinda like bears bladders curing cancer or the like or eating rare tiger penis will give you a boy.

[7962]

11. Agreed

[Sunlei]

13. This should be a national ban otherwise shark finning 'businessman' will move to another state.

This is why finning will continue until sharks go extinct, because some 'businessman' American middleman will buy them for resale.