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  PlanetArk 3 Aug 06
Key Facts About Asia's Endangered Animals

Underwater Times 2 Aug 06
NBA Star Yao Ming Swears off Shark Fin Soup 'Under All Circumstances'

PlanetArk 3 Aug 06
Chinese Consumer Key to Saving World's Sharks
Story by Ben Blanchard

BEIJING - China is the key to saving the world's sharks, a senior wildlife activist said, launching a campaign to convince the country's increasingly affluent consumers to stop eating shark fin.

In recent years, shark numbers have fallen drastically, threatening the existence of some species, and while exact scientific data is lacking, figures show imports of shark fin rocketing in China, said Steve Trent, president of WildAid.

"China is key. All the best estimates suggest that 70, 80, 90 percent of shark fin is for the mainland Chinese market, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan," Trent told Reuters. "As increasing wealth and income comes to Chinese consumers, they are spending it on luxury goods like shark's fin soup, and that means there is a pressure that is now no longer sustainable on these species in the wild," he said.

Shark fin, once offered as a gift to emperors, is traditionally served at Chinese wedding banquets and occasions when the host wants to impress guests with expensive and unusual dishes. Some also believe it is good for health.

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates 100 million sharks are caught each year, though experts say the real figure could be twice that, leading to a dramatic drop in the populations for some species.

Another problem is that most sharks are caught just for their fins. "They are taken on board, their fins are hacked off and they are dumped back into the water dead or dying," Trent said.

On Wednesday, the San Franciso-based WildAid unveiled a series of short television messages featuring basketball star Yao Ming and Chinese Olympic gold medal gymnast Li Ning to spread the conservation message.

"As we progress as a nation and society becomes more driven by money and the increased desire to quench our taste buds, we should take a step back and reflect," the towering Yao said, after vowing to give up eating shark fin.

WildAid has already been screening messages that use other celebrities such as Jackie Chan on satellite television across Asia, but this year it started showing them on terrestrial Chinese television, potentially reaching a far larger audience.

"There is an interest in conservation here that is mounting very fast, and if that is tapped into, it can translate into action and dramatically reduce the number of shark fins taken," said the British activist, a founding director of WildAid.

The problem has global implications, with fishermen as far away as Ecuador's supposedly protected Galapagos islands catching shark specifically for the Chinese market.

"This is hardly surprising when we can maybe expect to see around 250 million new Chinese middle class coming online over the next decade or so," Trent said. "And shark's fin being a strong, cultural, culinary interest, these people are going to want to consume, unless they're made to realise it's causing a real problem."

Underwater Times 2 Aug 06
NBA Star Yao Ming Swears off Shark Fin Soup 'Under All Circumstances'

Beijing, China (Aug 2, 2006 18:45 EST) NBA star Yao Ming pledged Wednesday to give up eating shark's fin soup, a Chinese delicacy, as he joined a campaign to promote wildlife protection. "I pledge to stop eating sharks fin soup and will not do so under all circumstances," Yao said. "Endangered species are our friends," Yao said at a news conference organized by the London-based conservation group WildAid.

The group said China is the world's biggest importer of shark's fins, which conservationists say are cut from sharks that are thrown back into the ocean to die.

"As the human population increases, many wildlife species are decreasing, and the primary reason is that humans fail to treat animals as friends," said Yao, who played for the Shanghai Sharks basketball team before moving to the Houston Rockets.

WildAid cited U.N. estimates that more than 100 million sharks are caught annually for fins and other body parts.

"China alone can save the sharks," said Steve Trent, president of WildAid. "If sharks are to survive we need to see a decline in shark fin consumption and new actions by government to control imports and consumption."

Accurate figures on China's shark-fin imports are hard to obtain because of poor monitoring, conservationists say. Hong Kong imported 11,662 tons of dried shark fin in 2003, most of which were shipped to mainland China, according to TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring group.

Yao also is to appear in a conservation advertising campaign for wildlife other than sharks. A television commercial shown at Yao's news conference features the 2.16-meter (7-foot-1) center jumping up from a basketball court to block a bullet fired at an elephant. The commercial will be shown on Chinese state television and other broadcasters, WildAid said. Gymast Li Ning, an Olympic gold medalist, and musician Liu Huan signed a petition with Yao for wildlife protection.

PlanetArk 3 Aug 06
Key Facts About Asia's Endangered Animals

ASIA: August 3, 2006 San Francisco-based WildAid launched a campaign on Wednesday using Chinese basketball star Yao Ming to convince people in China to be more aware of conservation issues and to stop eating shark fin. Here are some facts on four of Asia's endangered animals:

* SHARKS:

- Around 100 million sharks are killed every year for the largely China-driven global trade in shark fin and other parts. The meat is sold for food or use in health and beauty aids.

- Shark finning -- cutting off fins and throwing the rest of the shark into the sea -- is legal in Asia, though several nations have laws that sharks must be landed with their fins attached.

- Over-fishing threatens 20 percent of the world's 547 shark and ray species with extinction, the World Conservation Union said this year.

- Half of all reported shark fin imports pass through Hong Kong, the world's trading hub, bound for huge markets in China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and elsewhere.

* TIGERS:

- India is home to more than half the world's tigers. The rest are scattered from Southeast Asia to the far east of Russia.

- Between 5,000-7,000 tigers live in the wild, down from 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century. Poaching for skins and to make medicinal products in India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos is the most immediate threat, along with deforestation and the over-hunting of their natural prey.

- The tiger parts trade is illegal in China. But China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have been named top consumers of traditional medicines containing tiger parts.

- Three of the eight subspecies became extinct between the 1930s and 1980s; the Java, Caspian and Bali tigers. Of the remaining five -- the Siberian, Bengal, Sumatran, Indo-Chinese and South Chinese -- the 10-30 wild South China tigers are the most endangered, and could be extinct within five years.

* ELEPHANTS:

- There are between 25,600 and 32,750 Asian elephants living in small, fragmented groups in the wild, and more than 15,000 in captivity. This is less than a tenth the number of wild African elephants, the Worldwide Fund for Nature says.

- Elephant numbers are falling because of the destruction of their habitat and poaching to supply the illegal ivory market.

- Japan, the world's main ivory consumer, uses it for jewellery, carvings and Hankos (name stamps). The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) lifted a 10-year ban on ivory trading in 1999, allowing Japan to trade for stockpiles in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

* BEARS:

- Asia is home to five of the world's eight types of bear, the Asiatic black, brown, sloth, sun, and panda. All eight species are listed as critically endangered by CITES.

- Habitat loss and poaching are the main threats. The largest consumers of bear products are South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China and Asian communities throughout the world. In Thailand, the sun and Asiatic black bears are hunted to make bear-paw soup.

- China's legal bear bile trade has reduced the number of all bears except the giant panda, Animals Asia says. More than 7,000 bears are currently being farmed for their bile.

Sources: WildAid, Traffic, Animals Asia, the World Conservation Union, Savechinastigers.net, Reuters
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