Nearby, live ‘sand clams’ (in Australia – pippies) in a large dish with flowing water spilling over the sides. The Asian obsession with “live” seafood is a guarantee of freshness – to some extent.
Search for Seafood Soup Taipei video (on YouTube) shows ulcers on the face of the Queensland-type giant groper. That fish has been living in a small seafood restaurant aquarium for too long.
The nearby moral eel had a strange-looking pink-thing growing on the top of it’s nose. I presume the product of living in recirculating water?
Large white sea bass and black cod also shown were at Keelung in a new aquaculture research facility.
I’ve learned some of the White Sea Bass (similar to Australian jewfish/mulloway) had escaped and are a potential threat for smaller local species. The trade-off does not seem all that bad.
The live nautilus shell in the video appeared to be entertaining itself by rocking back and forth. Maybe a sign of protest?
Living in a small glass tank would be a shock after being brought to the surface from 400 feet of deep dark water where the shell lives. Maybe it would be happier if pressurized back to some depth?
Who cares about the rights of sea creatures? Especially anything “small”. Large creatures such as whales are given heaps of sympathy but little care is given to small sea creatures. Why is this so?
In time it may become a media issue.
Such a mission awaits people to pick it up perhaps if and when shark finning becomes a stale media issue.
Shark finning is already being misquoted to the hilt., a decoy or ploy by those in the business?
The latest I’ve spotted being red hot knives slicing the fins off.
Next distortion will have the shark screaming as it happens. Kids would believe that to be possible.
The solution to shark finning is to eat the whole shark, which is happening as white fish populations collapse everywhere around the world.
While sharks are caught there will always be fins for the soup trade.
How about the cruelty of boiling lobsters, prawns and crabs alive? Will this ever become an issue?
Aquaculture is obviously experimental with lessons to be learned in controlling the health and wellbeing of those serving a ‘life sentence’ with execution at the end.
**FEATURE** http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2009/04/21/2003441595
(Large fish ‘tortured’ in Asian restaurant fish tanks).
NOTE: There is a typo error with the value of a cooked one-meter long groper (mis-spelled as garoupa) in Hong Kong.
More likely US $640 not $64,000
Giant Groper (Grouper, or in HK Garoupa)
Brown spotted cod is sometime seen is restaurant fish tanks
