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Showing posts from October, 2007

Shark Fin Soup

I never really imagined I'd write a combined commentary on my two hobbies - food/cooking and underwater photography. How could they, with seemingly so little in common, ever merge into a single entry? In fact, with my enjoyment of fish as a main course and a photographic subject, one might even argue they are at odds with one another. They can hardly be performed at the same time (though easily in sequence - shoot, spear, cook), and - quite frankly - each is an expensive enough hobby unto itself, I'd hardly need to combine them. Yet, during the Shark Shootout this year, the topic of shark fin soup was raised during our "shark awareness course". A commentary was born. The cutting of shark fins is a tricky topic. Note that I said "cutting" because, in some cases, the animals are hauled out of the water, their fins removed - I'm sorry, sawed off with a knife - and then tossed back into the ocean, essentially immobilized and bleeding. One hopes that other