Deemo

Under a hypothetical situation, the Chinese government should decide to allocate its entire fund to protect the shark by reducing the consumption of shark's fin soup because conserving sharks are more impactful than conserving the pandas.  

                               
Firstly, the reduced consumption of shark's fin soup would reduce the number of sharks killed. Sharks are positioned at the top of the marine food chain as they are carnivores and they consume large varieties of fishes. Larger sharks may go to the extent of consuming dolphins and sea lions¹. With more sharks in the sea, it better balances the food chain as they tend to feed on weak, old and unhealthy marine creatures, hence reducing the spread of diseases among the marine population². This way, we could maintain the population of healthy marine life for fisheries to catch and in return for us to consume. Panda have a smaller and a less significant impact on the food chain as they are primary consumers. They are nowhere close to the top of the food chain.

Secondly, the shark’s fin is often obtained by cruel approach. It involves slicing off of the shark’s fins while the shark is still alive and dumping the rest of its body back into the ocean as it does not have a great deal of monetary value. They will die within days as they could not fight for survival³. Without fins, the sharks would not be able to swim and they would fall prey to other sea creatures. This is animal cruelty as the sharks have to go through so much suffering just for a bowl of soup⁴. To illustrate with an example, chickens are killed first before they are processed to be consumed. However in the case of sharks, they were not killed first before finning. This is another crucial reason why we should reduce the consumption of shark’s fin soup.

Certainly, there are reasons to why we should save the panda instead. The panda, being big, loveable and cute as compared to sharks, are a larger attraction that is relatively easier and cheaper to maintain. The panda can also generate or help to develop a tertiary industry of eco-tourism as they are an important cultural icon for Chinese people⁵. They can also be viewed at ease and are more accessible by the general public as compared to sharks.

In conclusion, the impact of sharks surviving is more important than the panda. Even though the panda serves as a very important tourist attraction, even for the case of Singapore e.g. Kai Kai and Jia Jia at the River Safari⁶, they play a small part in the food web and we have to look at the bigger picture for environment sustainability in the case of the marine life ecosystem. We do not consume pandas, but we do consume seafood to a large extent in all parts of the world. Therefore we would still need the marine life to carry on survival and hence provides us with long term seafood commodity.