Survey: Most Taiwanese hotels still serve shark's fin soup

Jun 16, 2011, 15:28 GMT

Taipei - Two conservation groups on Thursday charged that the majority of Taiwanese hotels still serve shark's fin soup, thus contributing to declines in shark populations.

The Taiwan Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) and The Humane Society International (HSI) made the charge at a joint press conference in Taipei.

According to the two groups' survey of Taiwan's top 76 tourist hotels, 71 of those supply shark's fin soup at wedding banquets.

The 71 hotels either mention shark's fin soup in their menu or provide it upon guests' requests.

'By counting the number of wedding banquets held at these hotels, we assume that between 920,000 to 3.8 million sharks are killed each year to provide shark's fin soup for these banquets,' EAST Director Chen Yu-min said.

'Even if the menus do not mention shark's fin soup, hotels are still responsible because, when people book a wedding banquet, they usually take hotel staff's advice,' she said.

Iris Ho, HSI's wildlife campaign manager, urged Taiwan's hotels to ban shark's fin soup from banquet menus.

'Malaysia removed shark's fin soup from official banquets in 2007. Palau declared its seas a shark protection zone in 2009. Hawaii banned harvesting and selling shark's fin on July 1. Taiwan should follow the world trend and enact laws to protect sharks,' she said.

According to EAST, between 26 to 37 million sharks are killed each year to meet Asian restaurants' demand for shark's fin soup.

Many of these fins end up in soups at wedding banquets in Taiwan, as some 100,000 couples tie the knot in Taiwan each year.