Delta Airlines-Shark Fin Consumers For Beijing

In an effort to please Chinese business Americans are serving up Sharks Fin in heroic portions.

This time the offending American company is none other than Delta Airlines. You might think after Disney's disaster with Sharks Fin in China that someone at Delta might say "you know, this might not be the best of ideas".

Shanghai, China — They served Coca-Cola along with the "braised shark's fin soup with cucumber and fish maw" Monday night at the welcoming celebration for Delta Air Lines' inaugural non-stop flight from Atlanta.

A blues band belted out "Georgia on My Mind" at a 10-course banquet to celebrate Delta Flight 19, which touched down at 2:09 p.m. local time -- the middle of the night back in Atlanta.

"This flight fills a critical void for the 65 million people in the Southeast," Kenneth Garrett, U.S. consul general for Shanghai, told a crowd of about 200 people at the 88-story Grand Hyatt of Shanghai.

Whale Sharks-Being Loved To Death?

Gotta hand it to the Australians. While they have quite a few of the best sharks sites on the planet to either cage dive or rodeo sharks in for divers, they still have not quite figured out what to do with their whale sharks.

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the ocean-a quick run over to the good old Shark-Wiki tells us:

"This species, despite its enormous size (40 feet), does not pose any significant danger to humans. It is a frequently cited example when educating the public about the popular misconceptions of all sharks as "man-eaters". They are actually quite gentle and can be playful with divers. There are unconfirmed reports of sharks lying still, upside down on the surface to allow divers to scrape parasites and other organisms from their bellies. Divers and snorkellers can swim with this giant fish without any risk apart from unintentionally being hit by the shark's large tail fin."

So why is it that Australia enacted a series of rules and regulations that almost prohibit diving with these magnificent critters?

"This (code) includes a limit on the number of people in the water at any one time with the sharks, minimum distances that boats and snorkellers must keep from the sharks, and definitely no touching of the sharks".

The ONLY thing that will save the whale shark and sharks in general for the future-is divers seeing these animals in person. Too many sharks worldwide are being hunted for just their fins and the whale shark is on the top of that list. Divers who encounter these animals are 80% more likely to want to voice concern to local governments over issues relating to sharks.

Food, or soup for thought.