Mi Choza De Nipa

From Voices, TODAY • Monday • June 9, 2008 Letter from DUDLEY AU THE REPLY from Resort World Sentosa (RWS) to the letter “Of sharks’ fins and high rollers” (June 5) from Liang Dingzi appears to have missed the point. RWS referred to a synergy of business and environment protection in “The 90-10 business decision” (June 7). While we understand that in any business, profitability is preferred to insolvency, the moral balance sought relative to the consumption of sharks’ fins is based on cruelty. Protection, it is admitted, has a link to the species whose fins are consumed to satisfy epicurean fastidiousness, as well as traditional epicurism. The species can be brought to the brink of extinction or extinction itself. In this sense, RWS is correct about fauna protection because the breeding of sharks is relatively slow, having only one or two offspring between fairly long intervals. The crucial factor, however, is the cruelty inflicted on the sharks. The dorsal fins are sliced off and the ...

From Today daily, 05-Jun-2008 edition i say OF SHARKS’ FINS AND HIGH ROLLERS LIANG DINGZI AS someone who abhors any form of cruelty to animals, whether inflicted out of perversion or for commercial purposes, I applaud Resorts World at Sentosa (RWS) for its decision to keep sharks’ fin off its menu when it opens in 2010. I hope other restaurants will soon follow suit. I find the commitment, however, somewhat half-hearted and disconcerting when it was revealed that high rollers at the resort may continue to feast on the Chinese delicacy. This is clearly a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, negating the good that would have been otherwise achieved. Worse, it suggests that compassion is a tradeable commodity — that wealth buys the right to be above the civilised norm that is being promoted. It does not matter that the consumption by high rollers will be confined to private rooms. However surreptitious, it does not disguise the fact that some sharks had their flippers chopped off before the...