Some are trying to ban shark fin soup, claiming that if we don’t stop it now, there will be no sharks left to eat all the surfers who annoy everyone at the beach. But is this such a good idea? Banning it may give it added appeal for people who are attracted to the forbidden, and it may actually increase the demand for it. No, I think a new strategy is needed in order to discourage the eating of shark fin soup.
Here’s what I suggest: Rather than banning shark fin soup, I would recommend serving it in a larger bowl. Oh, but it’s not just a larger bowl of the regular shark fin soup! For in this larger bowl, there would be a whole, live sand or lemon shark, and the fin in the soup would be moving around on the surface of the soup. This would intrigue the soup connoisseurs, and they’d lean in to take a spoonful. Oh, but as they did so, the shark would leap out of the soup bowl and bite their heads off!
Well, after the news coverage of these stories runs on the news for awhile, this ought to make shark fin soup eaters think twice before ordering that next bowl of scrumptious soup. And in this way, we can remove the market for such a mean-spirited dish without actually going so far as to increase its coolness factor by banning it. And this might work to end the demand, as well as get rid of some of the market at the same time: a win/win for everyone! (Well, almost everyone.)
