Week 5

A fairly quiet week overall. As we had no kids booked in we spent the week improving our lesson plans and running general errands. On Monday I headed to our local market again. I was disgusted and dismayed upon discovering numerous juvenile reef sharks. The sharks were about 1 meter long at the most. This is inexcusable. Sharks typically have a low fecundity and mature slowly, they are consequently prone to exploitation. Also on display was a large pacific Goliath grouper (only large by today’s standards and in comparison to the numerous tiny fishes at the market). The grouper was surrounded by onlookers taking photos. I estimate the weight of the fish to be approximately 75 kg, this sounds large but when you consider the animal may reach weight of 350 kg and upwards it is actually a runt. This fish is critically endangered due to overexploitation (through spear fishing) and a loss of habitat (juveniles are thought to spend their first few years among mangrove roots). Groupers are often taken before they reach a mature age. The fishing of sharks and groupers is may be short sighted – such animals are apex predators, they are located at the very top of the food web and control the abundance of animals below them. In the absence of such predators there may be a boom in the population of prey species which can dramatically affect the overall “health” of an ecosystem.

After leaving the open market I headed to the local supermarket. I was shocked to find dried shark fins for sale there. I had already seen shark fins for sale prior to this at the open market but finding them in the supermarket is altogether different – it shows that the Chinese are quite happy to promote “shark finning” to support not only the local stall vendor but to supply the supermarket chain. I took some photos of this, however halfway through I was approached by one of the staff and told to stop – perhaps they are aware of the controversy behind this product…

Later on in the week I went for a stroll along our local beach. Towards the end of my walk I happened across a horseshoe crab! Unfortunately the creature was dead and had been so for some time judging by the smell. The animal was perhaps 50 cm across. I was pretty excited so ran back to the house to retrieve my camera. I left the crab to decompose in the gentle swash. The next day my eager to please Chinese house mate had found the animal and kindly deposited outside the house for all to view. At this stage the smell was terrible and I’m amazed that Kathy had the constitution to carry the animal the 200 m or so to the house!

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. Next Monday is important as Hainan Adventures is merging with China Climb – a successful adventure company situated in Guangxi province. Hopefully we will see a few more faces within the company.