New York May Ban Shark Fin Sales, Following Other States

济溪小编 · 发表于 2012-2-23 21:59:54

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New York May Ban Shark Fin Sales, Following Other States

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

Shark fins at Po Wing Hong Food Market in Chinatown. The fins cost from $100 to more than $500 per pound.

Large glass bottles of desiccated shark fins grace the upper shelves of nearly every convenience store and grocery in Chinatown, bearing price tags — from $100 to more than $500 per pound — that reflect the market value of a delicacy that has been served for centuries.

Shark fin soup is a traditional Chinese banquet dish, believed to bring good luck and numerous health benefits. Today, it is mostly served at weddings and other celebrations as the ultimate demonstration of a host’s wealth and hospitality.
But now, that tradition is slowly being legislated off menus and market shelves across parts of the United States.
On Tuesday, legislators in New York State announced a bill that, following the example of Western states, would ban the sale, trading, possession and distribution of shark fins, possibly as of 2013. California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington are enacting similar bans that were passed last year, while Florida, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia have legislation pending.
The bill in New York is sponsored in the Assembly by Alan Maisel, Linda B. Rosenthal and Grace Meng, who represents the heavily Asian district of Flushing, Queens, and is the only Asian-American in the Assembly. Identical bills are expected to be introduced in both houses of the Legislature.
Ms. Meng, the daughter of immigrants who worked in and owned Chinese restaurants, said at a news conference in Manhattan on Tuesday that she “loved shark fin soup.”
“This is going to be a huge adjustment for the community,” she added, “but it’s important to be responsible citizens.”
Scientists estimate that up to 73 million sharks are killed annually to satisfy the appetite for shark fin soup, leading some species to the brink of extinction and depleting oceans of a key ecosystem predator. Since the fin is so much more valuable than the rest of the shark, fishermen often slice it off and push the still-writhing shark back into the sea to die, although many governments ban the practice.
At the same time, younger generations of Chinese diners, in the West but also in places like Hong Kong and Shanghai, have displayed far less devotion to a high-end dish that they view as environmentally unsound. Yao Ming, the Chinese basketball star, has campaigned against the consumption of shark fin soup with the conservation group Wild Aid in both Asia and North America.
While many restaurants in Chinatown said that a ban would hurt their business, managers predicted that most clients would be only too happy to have it off the menu.
“It’s only the elderly who want it: when their grandkids get married, they want the most expensive stuff, like an emperor,” said Vincent Yu, a waiter at Grand Harmony Palace, where the soup sells for $30 to more than $100 a bowl, depending on whether the meat it contains is pure shark fin or mixed with shrimp or chicken. Alluding to the famously tasteless nature of the fins, he added, “Guests offer me a bowl all the time, but I like won-ton soup.”
Grand Harmony and many other Chinatown banquet halls are already developing high-end substitutes for shark fin soup, using other kinds of fish, abalone or tofu.
There are dozens of large banquet halls in New York City, serving the equivalent of 1,000 fins each month, estimated Patrick Kwan, the New York director of the Humane Society of the United States, which has campaigned for a bill. He said the soup was not crucial to Chinese culture: it is “nothing more than a status symbol — a ‘keeping up with the Joneses.’ ”
Dr. Michael Hirschfield, chief scientist of the conservation groups Oceana, said adding New York to the list of states banning shark fins would have an outsize effect, potentially quashing the American trade of fins once the West Coast bans take effect this year, because New York is the major East Coast importer.
Businesses in Chinatown are preparing for a shark fin phase-out. Nancy Ng, the manager at Po Wing Hong Food Market on Elizabeth Street, said that when she saw California had passed a ban last fall, she stopped ordering new shark fins, reasoning that New York would probably follow its example.
Anyway, she said, the price went up about $50 a pound in the last six months for many of the fins in her store, whose prices vary depending on size, color and quality. “It’s gotten so expensive,” she said, “so there’s much less of a market.”

纽约拟禁止鱼翅买卖唐人街店铺及餐馆生意或受影响

纽约一些州议员2月21日已经提出禁止鱼翅买卖的草案，这或将影响唐人街一些店铺和餐馆的生意。

美国中文网2月22日援引《纽约时报》的报道称，纽约当局21日效仿西部一些州的做法，宣布了一项法案，禁止拥有和销售鱼翅，该法案将在2013年实施。加利福尼亚、夏威夷、俄勒冈等州已经通过了类似的法案。
该法案由纽约州众议员孟昭文等提出。孟昭文为华裔，她在记者会上称，虽然自己爱喝鱼翅汤，但是作为一个负责任的公民应该支持这个法案。
许多唐人街的餐馆老板说，禁令会损害他们的生意，食客也不希望鱼翅从菜单中消失。不过，一些餐馆已经准备用鲍鱼或者豆腐来代替鱼翅汤。
纽约唐人街几乎每一个便利店和杂货店的柜台上都可以看到瓶装的干鱼翅，各店铺也都在为禁食鱼翅令生效做准备。例如，宝永鸿食品市场老板南希说：“加利福尼亚通过了禁食鱼翅令，从那以后我就不再订购新鱼翅，我想有一天纽约也可能会效仿推出类似的禁令。”
另外还有专家称，纽约颁布禁食鱼翅令会沉重打击美国的鱼翅贸易。