Fasting from the endangered fish species could save them from
extinction
(republishing, copying, no restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
A video made on the open sea by the Greenpeace group that campaigns to
save the environment and all the earth’s species is bloody and gruesome.
It shows a Japanese ocean going ship hauling in huge sharks cutting off
the fins and tails and throwing the writhing suffering creature back
into the ocean to be devoured by other sharks. A total waste of a
magnificent creature and all just to make a bowl of soup. The craze for
the delicacy in Asia alone is decimating the dwindling stocks of sharks
in the world’s oceans.
But it is not only sharks. In the north Atlantic, their fishing fleets
of Spain, Britain and Ireland and other European countries had depleted
the fish stocks of the northern ocean by over fishing to the point where
many species are close to extinction. Environmental protection groups in
Britain are calling on the consumers to refrain from buying endangered
fishes. We need to ask the shops for fish not on the endangered list.
There are 20 varieties of fish in the North Atlantic alone endangered.
The Marine Conservation Society says haddock, cod, skate and tuna are
all on the list of vulnerable species. It has a book, ‘The Good fish
guide’ and there we can know the best to buy. The power of the people
lies in their pockets. To buy or not to buy a particular product is what
quickly changes the profit driven businesspeople whom are financing the
industry with no real concern for the future.
A new startling and frightening says that in 40 years at the present
type of fishing with huge nets and the stein purse system, there will be
a total wipe out of fish on a global scale. We are consuming the sources
that feed us the healthiest food of all.
Instead of carefully practicing conservation, sustainable development
and harvesting of fish we are destroying the stocks. In Asia, the price
for the Sharks fins is astronomical a cool US$10,000 for the tail fin
from a basking shark. Wealthy customers pay as much as $100 a serving
for the delicacy, but at a terrible cost to the entire species.
The population of Thresher sharks has fallen by 75% in a mere 15 years
because of the plundering of God’s oceans. Blue sharks and hammer heads
in the pacific and southern oceans are also endangered.
In the poorer Asian countries, millions of people depend on fishing to
live. They have small boats, while big families are just subsistence to
fisher folks. That is why they live on their daily catch. This is
getting almost impossible to continue and many face hunger and even
starvation. They fish all day and all night and catch nothing. The
fishermen of Galilee would be shocked if the huge ships with massive
nets meters long trawl the seas and scoop up all the fish. Most are then
destroyed and thrown back because they have no commercial value.
There is no one to work a miracle for them unless we do –the consumers
of fish. We can ask for the organically raised fish or we can become
vegetarians. Meat is now considered unhealthy since the BSE and there
revelations of the fact that hormones and other chemicals are mixed with
the cattle feed.
The warming of the oceans is also causing problems to the fish that
breed and feed in waters of exact temperature and so they face an
immediate threat, their eggs can perish. Their reproduction cycle is
fatally damaged.
Amid this doom and gloom coming from the people who know the scientists
and the environmental protection there is only a chance to stop this
destruction by using our buying power. This is what Fair trade is all
about, it guides consumers to make the right choices based on ethical
and moral codes and criteria. Not only is it good for the producers but
good for the consumers. We are the guardians of the planet and we have
the responsibility to guard and protect this environment that sustains
our lives.
To allow it to be destroyed is the path to sin, truly a “sin of the
world”. It is a situation that needs to be redeemed and perhaps prayer
and fasting from the endangered species is a good way to start being
accountable for what God has given us. [End]
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