The Editor,
A controlled source of shark fin must be found: Farm raised sharks!
The perfect solution for the consumer who still wants a bowl of fin, but also wants to do the correct environmental thing.
In B.C., about 3,500 jobs are directly created from fish farming. I'm looking to make it 3501. Why, I'll apply for an aqua farm license and run large floating pens of farm raised big whites the length of B.C.
Not only supplying the dwindling need for shark fin, but also providing a sharp toothed ribbon of home land security.
"I hope my shark fin soup is farm raised, I don't prefer the unknown wild source, you know," will be the wish of every responsible patron ordering shark fin soup. And because of this, I expect much interest for investment opportunity from the Asian and business community in my endeavor.
Shark farming is as natural as salmon farming, which we all know is as natural as eating the fish from your aquarium. Start up cost would be high, but after feeding the shark till the first harvest, the farm becomes self-sustaining.
After the sharks that have been killed for their fin, the carcasses become food for the next crop. Kaching! What a concept!
And the fear of perhaps a sea lion getting in the net like they have with farmed salmon, will be a welcome new food source to a large number of hungry sharks.
Why, I'll employ scientists to use their wisdom in perhaps genetically altering the shark, to produce a bigger, better fin. Perhaps using genes from the orca to produce a six-foot bowl of fin to satisfy the hungriest of patrons.
Or the easiest solution, crossing the shark with a politician. Genetically very close, and the advantage for the shark is getting a new fin every four years.
Yes, patrons of the triangle soup do the responsible thing, order farm-raised shark for your next bowl.
If we have to wait for city council to make the responsible, correct decision, farm-raised will be all that's left.
And from what I understand, it can't taste any worse.
Bob Niles Richmond
