Turquoise_Ledge_Essay

Ka Chan EWRT 1A Sec. 25 6/14/2011 Essay: response to THE TURQUOISE LEDGE The Greed Wildlife and human being have been living together since few thousand years ago. Whenever a species threaten our life, we kill them until they are nearly extinct. But be honest, which species created the most damage to the natural environment and threatening the entire ecosystem, and food chain, in the planet where we all share the same resources' The answer should not take you more than two seconds to come up with. It is mankind. Since I am aware of what human have done to the environment, I am interested in two species. They are sharks and dolphins. The state of the sharks and dolphins can really reflect on what human and especially Chinese has done to the natural environment, and the reason behind it. And what are the effects to the modern ecosystem as the number of sharks and dolphins starts to decrease. Sharks are a type of fish which live in the earth for more than 420 million years ago. The population of sharks has declined rapidly due to shark finning. Shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins and the discard at sea of the carcass. The sharks are mostly alive when they are being thrown back into the sea. A finless shark is incapable of swimming, and the shark will slowly sinks to the sea bed and eventually eaten alive by other fish. One pound of dried shark fin can sell for $300 or even more depends on the size and thickness. This is the reason why sharks are vanishing. In the shark finning industry, any kind of shark is taken no matter of size, age, or species. Every year, there are over eight thousand tons of shark fins are slaughter. The fins is only about four percent of a shark’s weight, it means there are approximately two hundred thousand tons of shark are thrown back into the sea without fins. Shark finning is a worldwide and largely unmonitored practice. It is estimated that over 100 million sharks are killed every year only for their fins. Shark’s population dropped 70% and even up to 95% in a few species. As a result, eighteen species of sharks are listed as endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Sharks are very fragile and the reproduction rate is very slow. Unlike other fishes, sharks do not lay hundreds of millions of eggs. Many sharks take up to twenty years to reach sexual maturity and then produce one shark pup each year. The current demand and hunting rate for shark fins makes it impossible for the sharks to restore their population to previous levels. This brutish and cruel practice is mainly for one purpose – the tasteless and innutritious shark fin soup. We should stop finning immediately because sharks are valuable creatures of oceanic eco-systems. They are both predators and ecological stabilizers, and they serve in an important role to eliminating diseased and genetically-defective animals and help to balance fish populations. If mankind removes such predators from an ecosystem, the result is the same as removing the foundation of a skyscraper – the building will collapse. Building and expanding are the major activities that Hong Kong government used to do. To accommodate the demand of housing and special land use, like transportation and recreation. The Hong Kong government has no choice but to execute numerous reclamation plans. Although the constructions are highly monitored by the government and private companies, the damage to the natural environment remains unchanged. The extensive reclamation projects in the Hong Kong western sea water, such as Hong Kong international airport, has a great impact of destroying important and long-term habitats for the Chinese White Dolphins. The reclamation around costal areas is forcing the dolphins to move to locations where the habitats are not too suitable for Dolphins. The destructions to the coastal area are directly affecting the Chinese White Dolphins in terms of breeding, foraging and nursery. Dolphins heavily rely on echolocation, for communication, navigation, and hunting. The dolphins will listen to the reflected sound that they produce and use it to locate their mates, food, and other objects. Coastal construction works sometimes will emit different sound waves, which may interrupt the dolphin’s echolocation capability. In Hong Kong, sea traffic is getting busier every year. The current ferry route travel across the dolphin’s habitats around Lantau waters, which is increasing the risk of hitting the dolphins. Scars caused by boats can be observed on the bodies of the Chinese White Dolphin. Few months ago, I read a book called “Field notes from a catastrophe,” by Elizabeth Kolbert. Although its major discussion are on the climate change due to global warming, but it still contains a few chapters on endangered species. I vividly remember global warming has force butterflies to move towards north, after the butterflies found a suitable place to live, they have to move again within 1 year because they just couldn’t withstand the hot weather. The whole book is very inspirational on how billionaires and industrialists slowly destroy the world. The entire book, and the decreasing number of sharks and dolphins tell me one nature of human. We are greedy. The ultimate purpose of life is to survive. But mankind seems too focus on our living, and forgot we are sharing the same planet with other organisms and most importantly, we simply couldn’t live without them. If we don’t stop the destruction now, we are all going to a dead end. Cutting edge technology is not going to create an extinct species. If the ecosystem and the food chain is destroyed, we will never been able to restore it, regardless of how wealthy and how high-tech we are. We need not to dive into the deepest part of the sea or travel to the farthest end of the world to see the cruelest side of the nature. We only have to look into a mirror.