It’s about cruelty, not profits

Letter from Dudley Au, Today Online 9 Jun 08

THE REPLY from Resort World Sentosa (RWS) to the letter “Of sharks’ fins and high rollers” (June 5) from Liang Dingzi appears to have missed the point.

RWS :referred to a synergy of business and environment protection in “The 90-10 business decision” (June 7).

While we understand that in any business, profitability is preferred to insolvency, the moral balance sought relative to the consumption of sharks’ fins is based on cruelty. Protection, it is admitted, has a link to the species whose fins are consumed to satisfy epicurean fastidiousness, as well as traditional epicurism.

The species can be brought to the brink of extinction or extinction itself.

In this sense, RWS is correct about fauna protection because the breeding of sharks is relatively slow, having only one or two offspring between fairly long intervals.

The crucial factor, however, is the cruelty inflicted on the sharks.

The dorsal fins are sliced off and the sharks thrown back into the sea to die a slow death through starvation (unable to hunt) or falling prey to other predators because of the inability to defend themselves — the mutilation inflicted upon them has deprived the sharks of stability in movement.

Cruelty, therefore, is the prime factor around which revolves the debate and to say only a small quantity is eaten in private does not eradicate the cruelty involved to the animal and also insults logic.

This reasoning makes it clear that cruelty in small doses and the fins not seen to be eaten (in private) by high rollers is acceptable. This appears to look like convoluted logic.

Cruelty in any form and dosage is not acceptable nor justifiable. One either accepts the cruelty or rejects it.

There is no middle ground, where the supposed balance meets. What is contentious, in reality, is cruelty.