72. SEAFOOD MENU - (in Traditional Chinese (Taiwan),English, Japanese)

Surprise. Whale shark fin stew or Whole shark fin stew on the menu.  I think it's 'whole shark'
Whale shark is protected almost everywhere.

Certainly protected in Taiwan for more than 10 years.

To convert.
New Taiwan Dollars 1000  (NT $1000) is about $44 in Australia.  (AUD$44) in August 2018.

For the record, we had Peking Duck (aka Beijing Duck).  Shark fin soup is a bit of a novelty. Interesting to see the prices - lower than commonly screamed about by celebrity chefs on You Tube.

Shark fin soup.Taipei in 2010 <click

 Framed display of various shark species fins.

The shark fin soup debate seems to have run out of steam - stale news now. There has been an element of fake all along.  It's been picked-up and copied by well-intending conservationists with no experience in ocean matters.

As the value of shark meat increases and the catch rates of  usual fish decline, the previous waste of sharks (where only the fin was taken) has stopped or delined.

Whole sharks with fins attached are legal.  With fins removed at sea is illegal.

Big consequences when the law is broken.  Not just for the fishermen involved but for their home country with bans of their entire seafood exports.

So live sharks with fins removed is almost a thing of the past.

I noted that Taipei shops (in 2017) who previously had many shark fins for sale have toned down their displays.  The menu shown here illustrates that nothing has changed it's just less obvious.

Banning shark fins by an entire country has been a publicity stunt (a bit like banning bottled water) which will ultimately put the product 'under the counter' or on a private restaurant menu.