Shark fin soup: A recipe for extinction

Shark fin soup: A recipe for extinction is my latest article for The Scavenger.

This was one of my favourite articles to write - the words flowed quite effortlessly, which does not always happen with my writing! I hope you enjoy it.
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Shark fin soup: A recipe for extinction

17 July 2011

Sharks are disappearing from the world’s oceans at an alarming rate. The demand for shark fin soup has driven many shark species to the brink of extinction, and threatens to destabilise the entire marine ecosystem. While some progressive shark conservation steps have recently been made, tough international measures are urgently needed to protect sharks, writes Susannah Waters.  

“And does anyone know what species THIS shark is?!”, the museum tour guide asks the crowd of children in a high-pitched, excited tone. A chorus of voices shrieks back an array of guesses, with the guide praising the correct answer.

“Indeed – a tiger shark!”.         

                    

He then leads the boisterous group to another display further along, repeating his question. 

Rounding the next corner, the guide becomes slightly agitated and glances nervously to the left. He turns and bypasses that display, moving on briskly to continue his guessing game at the next exhibit.

What the guide is so eager to avoid is a video, on continual loop, about the gruesome practice of shark finning. The graphic images of sharks being butchered alive was likely deemed too disturbing for the visiting children.  

But the video, highlighting shark finning’s devastating effect on global shark populations, was undoubtedly the most important aspect of the Planet Shark - Predator or Prey exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum earlier this year.

The price of fins

Shark finning – the process of cutting off a shark’s fins for commercial use - is driven by a multi-billion dollar a year industry servicing the shark fin soup market. 

The principal market for shark fins is Hong Kong, which imported 10 million kilograms (10,000 tonnes) of shark fin in 2008, and encompasses up to 80% of the entire trade. The majority of fins transited through Hong Kong wind up on the Chinese mainland, where shark fin soup is afforded a high status.

Demand for the soup has escalated in recent years, and has accordingly spearheaded a steep drop in shark populations.

Tooni Mahto of the Australian Marine Conservation Society has a special interest in shark conservation. The Marine Campaigns Officer affirms that shark finning’s repercussions on shark species are enormous.  

“Shark finning and the targeted fishing of sharks around the world pose the greatest threat to the continued existence of sharks in our global oceans”, Mahto tells The Scavenger.

Research indicates that worldwide shark numbers have plummeted by as much as 90% in recent decades, largely attributable to shark finning. It is estimated that an astonishing 100 million sharks are killed specifically for their fins each year.

Mahto pinpoints the “immense” financial incentives to obtain shark fins as central to the problem.

A single bowl of shark fin soup can fetch as much as US$400. Animals Asia claims that a large whale shark pectoral fin can sell for US$15,000 in China.

This relentless quest for profit has placed sharks in unprecedented danger. In fact, their dwindling numbers are providing further enticement for the industry to continue its trade. Animals Asia explains: “As sharks become scarce, the value of their fins increases, as does the incentive for fishermen to search out remaining populations”. Sharks are therefore entrapped in a vicious cycle of overexploitation.

Presently, around 30% of all shark species are threatened with extinction.

According to Claudette Rechtorik, Research & Education Manager at the Sydney Aquarium Conservation Fund, many species are being fished at a rate faster than their reproductive capacities can replenish numbers.

“Given the finite number of sharks in the system and the number of mortalities occurring annually, based on simple maths, shark populations will continue to decline”, Rechtorik tells The Scavenger.

The scalloped hammerhead is just one species classified as endangered in recent years, due to the demand for shark fin soup. A decrease in numbers of 98% in some regions has placed this species at great risk of extinction.

Butchered alive and abandoned at sea

A two-metre shark is hauled on board a wooden boat. She lashes about in fear as two sets of human hands attempt to steady her. A third pair of hands, wielding a knife, moves in toward the panicking shark.

As the long blade severs the dorsal fin from her writhing body, pure terror inhabits her dark eyes. Within seconds, the same menacing hands dismember her tail and pectoral fins. The group then rolls the terrified and bleeding shark back into the ocean, where she sinks to an unknown fate.

This grisly technique of removing a shark’s fins places prime value on retention of the fins, while the remainder of the shark is generally dismissed as surplus. Shark meat doesn’t generate returns in the same realm as fins, so after enduring the violent removal of their fins, the disabled sharks are typically tossed back into the sea to suffer an excruciating death.

Sea Shepherd reveals that many sharks ultimately bleed to death, or are attacked by other sharks or fish. Others drown, as their inability to swim results in a lack of oxygen circulating through their gills.

Every day, hundreds of fishing vessels roll into dock, strewn with the souvenirs of shark slaughter on deck - evidence of a vicious war being waged against sharks, away from public view and in the name of profit.

Legally lame

Shark protection is undermined by an absence of laws preventing fishing in the open seas. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of individual nations to enact legislation governing their own territorial waters, and many countries do not have such regulations in place.

Nevertheless, national regulations and laws are often not decisive enough to protect sharks adequately. The existence of legal loopholes can often enable fishing vessels to simply bypass shark finning restrictions.  

Earlier this year the U.S. government ratified the Shark Conservation Act, effectively closing a loophole which had facilitated the purchase of shark fins on the open sea by U.S. vessels for years. The fins were on-sold at an inflated price on U.S. markets.

Shark finning has been illegal in U.S. waters since 2000. However, as it is stipulated that fins can be transported back to port provided they are accompanied by their associated carcass, fins are still entering the market.

Australia also has a somewhat ambiguous position on the issue of shark finning. While the finning and disposal of sharks at sea is illegal - owing in part to a campaign by the Australian Marine Conservation Society - it is still permitted to utilise a shark’s fins, provided the entire shark is retained by the fishing vessel.   

Hundreds of thousands of sharks are fished legally in Australian waters every year. The lucrative fins are frequently the primary target, and the carcass is generally appropriated for less profitable flake products.

Disappointingly, this means that Australia is still feeding the supply chain of the trade, and is doing very little to discourage the slaughter of sharks for their fins. Mahto reveals that in 2007, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service recorded the export of 165 tonnes (165,000 kg) of shark fin from Australia.

Furthermore, Australia imports approximately 10,000 kilograms of dried shark fin per year, which is tantamount to 26,000 sharks. Mahto says that Australia is sadly lagging behind precedents being set by other nations, and that the best hope for sharks in the region is for the trade of all shark products to be outlawed.

Globally, illegal fishing is rampant, and the preservation of marine protected areas can be flouted with full knowledge of the authorities.

This was highlighted in the 2006 documentary Sharkwater. It uncovered clandestine shark finning operations functioning with government collusion in Costa Rican marine reserves, where sharks are ostensibly protected.

An International Plan of Action for sharks was established by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation in 1999. However, as adhering to the Plan is voluntary, the UN has no authority over non-compliance. Moreover, the Plan’s recommendations do not explicitly state that shark fins should not be acquired – only that sharks not be fished purely for their fins.

Global initiatives

Positively, Mahto believes that a “groundswell of international support” for sharks is beginning to gain traction. She applauds what she deems “incredibly positive international shark conservation steps” taken by some countries in recent months.

She cites the recent announcement of a permanent shark sanctuary in Honduras, which will uphold a moratorium on the commercial fishing of sharks established there last year.

Other international steps indicate that shark protection is creeping onto the global agenda.

Last year, the Maldives extended a national embargo on shark hunting, banning shark fishing in all its waters plus all shark product exports. In a joint report, TRAFFIC and the Pew Environment Group claim the decision was based on “evidence that sharks are more valuable as a tourist attraction than as exported meat and fins”.

The Malaysian state of Sabah, which has seen drastic reductions in shark species, is currently preparing legislation for a ban on shark finning.

A bill adopted by Hawaii which bans all trade and the possession of shark fins will come into effect this July.  Similar bills have recently passed, or are pending, in several U.S. states.

But are these efforts enough? Are they too little, too late?

Rechtorik says that while many organisations and some governments are working hard on shark protection, “when working with cultural norms it can take time. Unfortunately we don’t have that time”. She believes that the need for action by the international community is “urgent”.

Mahto agrees that “global protection” for sharks from fishing and finning is desperately needed.

Thus, while individual legislation within countries is commendable, it is clear that piecemeal measures are grossly insufficient to rectify a problem of this scale. In the absence of any legally binding and enforceable international agreements protecting sharks, they remain vulnerable and largely left at the mercy of a ruthless industry with a lot to gain.

International cooperation, in the form of a mandatory agreement, is possibly the last hope for the continued survival of sharks.

The future

In what have been described as “shocking” findings, a high-level workshop of marine scientists, convened by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), recently analysed the current state of the world’s oceans. Their assessment was grim.

IPSO claims the multi-country panel produced “a grave assessment of current threats - and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history”.

Scientists have long warned that if sharks disappeared from our oceans, there would be a snowball effect on other marine species and the entire ocean environment. And while there appears to be consensus that the impact on marine ecosystems would be catastrophic, we are yet to fully grasp the magnitude of the crisis.

According to Rechtorik, the over-exploitation of sharks is causing “untold ecological damage”. She says that there is already evidence of what occurs when “top predators” such as sharks disappear from the environment.

One significant outcome is that “prey species proliferate and ecosystem function becomes unbalanced”. Rechtorik also asserts that damage to habitat is a natural consequence of this.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society contends that marine ecosystems risk total collapse without sharks. Mahto remarks that this is because sharks bring an “element of stability” due to their “incredibly important role” in the marine environment. Consequently, she believes that a worldwide recognition of the value of sharks is crucial to the health of the ocean.

“If sharks species are to go extinct in our lifetime, this will not only have a catastrophic effect on marine health, but will also be a tragic testament to the way in which we interact with our wild blue planet”, Mahto says.

Sharks are an ancient species which has survived for at least 400 million years through several global mass extinctions – a demonstration of their resilience. With 100 million sharks being brutally killed for soup each year, Mahto’s words are particularly pertinent. Will we allow them to disappear on our watch?

Images from top: Shark finning, photo by Shelley Clarke; the Great White Shark, photo courtesy of the Australian Marine Conservation Society.

Wildlife tourism in Thailand: Cruel and exploitative?

My latest article for The Scavenger, "Wildlife tourism in Thailand: Cruel and exploitative?"
It is about the exploitation of wildlife by tourists in Thailand, through activities such as elephant riding. Some of these activities are considered to be quite harmless, but they are in fact very damaging to wildlife species and cause massive cruelty to individual animals.

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Wildlife tourism in Thailand: Cruel and exploitative?

10 June 2011

Experiencing the local wildlife whilst on holidays is high on the agenda of many holiday-makers. But can a seemingly harmless interaction have wider implications for wildlife conservation? Susannah Waters uncovers the consequences of some popular wildlife-based tourist activities in Thailand, and writes that the widespread use of animals for entertainment is a massive threat to many critically endangered species - and very damaging to individual animals.


Bam Bam was obsessed with a turtle soft toy. The turtle dwarfed her tiny furry frame, and she hugged it constantly, swaying back and forth. The sweet-faced orphaned baby gibbon missed her mother.

The illegal wildlife trade is considered the biggest threat to individual species following habitat loss. The trading of animals among and within countries places intense pressure on wild populations, and has propelled many species to the edge of extinction.

In addition to the lucrative trade in animal parts and the pet market, there is another sinister factor driving this demand for wild-caught animals: the tourism industry.

Despite a period of political unrest which transformed tourist-mecca Bangkok into a battleground, Thailand demonstrated its enduring popularity as a tourist destination with a record 15.8 million visitors last year.

The allure of this South East Asian nation is understandable: the white sandy beaches, ancient temples, and variety of wildlife are captivating.

And the opportunities to interact with wildlife are plentiful. Owing to the common use of many species as tourist attractions in Thailand, holiday-makers can pay for an up-close encounter. Tourists are able to ride an elephant along a forest trail, hold and have their photo taken with a baby gibbon, or pat a tiger and get a snapshot souvenir.

But at what price to the animal is that snapshot, that fleeting sensation of silken fur between the fingers, or that ride atop an elephant’s back?

The price is often life, say wildlife conservationists. They claim that education is vital to helping tourists make informed choices, and to discourage their often inadvertent support of species depletion and the exploitation of wildlife.

Primates in peril

There was a time when the loud, haunting call of the white-handed gibbon echoed through the rainforests of Thailand’s largest island Phuket. But habitat loss and heavy poaching led to the extinction of the island’s gibbon population 30 years ago, and the once-vibrant forests fell eerily silent. 

Today, Phuket’s gibbon population is largely represented on the streets and beaches rather than the forest. These gibbons have been sold via the illegal wildlife trade on mainland Thailand.

The endearing white-framed faces and cuddly appeal of baby gibbons lures many a tourist to pay for a photo or hug in the popular holiday spots of Thailand each year.

Carried and exhibited on their owners’ shoulders, these small apes are handled by a succession of paying customers, to be displayed as photo adornments in an intrusive camera flash frenzy. Gibbons can also be found in bars where they are forced to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes for cheap thrills.

Life as a tourist attraction is harsh. Baby gibbons are often administered drugs to keep them docile, they are vulnerable to diseases such as Hepatitis A and B, and once they reach sexual maturity their fading appeal and increased strength sees them cast off – to either become private pets, dumped, or killed.

Phuket’s Gibbon Rehabilitation Project (GRP), a centre for former pet and tourist attraction white-handed gibbons, aims to rehabilitate and reintroduce ex-captive gibbons back to the wild. To date, it has successfully released several family groups into the Khao Pra Theaw forest.

The GRP has a popular education centre which informs visitors about gibbon conservation, and the devastating impact tourist activities can have on these petite primates. It estimates that as many as 10 gibbons are killed for every baby successfully poached from the wild.

To obtain a baby, poachers often shoot and kill their entire treetop-dwelling family unit in the forest. Babies also frequently die from injuries incurred falling the great distance from their mother’s arms to the forest floor.

It has been illegal to poach gibbons from the wild in Thailand since 1992.

White-handed gibbons, along with the nine other gibbon species in South East Asia, are recorded in Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Appendix 1 specifically covers species threatened with extinction.

Primate conservationist Petra Osterberg has undertaken volunteer work at the GRP several times, and currently works in the Primate Welfare Team at Wild Futures’ Monkey Sanctuary in the UK. She says that the use of gibbons for entertainment is a “very serious” threat to wild populations.

“Because gibbons have been locally extinct in Phuket for 30 years or more, the baby gibbons brought in for entertainment are coming from further and further afield, and their captures are affecting populations already vulnerable from deforestation and other disruptions to the habitat”, Osterberg tells The Scavenger.

She says that the problem goes even deeper: “The fact that poachers are killing female gibbons to get to their infant is creating a gender bias in the remaining populations”. Osterberg says that this has resulted in a “genetic viability problem” within wild groups. This is significant, as gibbons are monogamous and mate for life.

In regard to tourist participation in gibbon exploitation, Osterberg says “I’m sure most would never accept a similar treatment of wildlife in their own home countries.”

She suspects it largely comes down to holiday behaviour. “Many are excited about, and willing to pay for, the prospect of being in the presence of exotic wild animals”. Osterberg doesn’t believe that all tourists are completely aware of the “individual suffering” of gibbons, and the effect tourist actions may have on wild populations.

Elephant exploitation 

Considered an “integral” holiday activity by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, elephant riding is frequently on the traveller itinerary. “Begging” elephants are also a visible presence on bustling city streets, their owners jostling with other vendors for the tourist dollar.

But tourist support of these activities reinforces elephants’ endangered status.

Conclusive population data is difficult to obtain, but reports suggest there are somewhere between 500 and 1,500 wild elephants remaining in Thailand, and over 2,000 that are domesticated or in captivity. Overall numbers are decreasing by 5 - 10% per year. Asian elephants are classified as highly endangered.

During her first trip to Thailand in 2002, Bring the Elephant Home director Antoinette van de Water witnessed the suffering of tourist attraction elephants. The former marketing executive from the Netherlands encountered begging baby elephants on crowded city streets, and says it left a “deep impression”.

At that time she was a volunteer at the Elephant Nature Foundation’s Elephant Nature Park (ENP), a sanctuary for formerly abused elephants within a peaceful valley in Chiang Mai. There, van de Water learned much more about the plight of tourist elephants than she had anticipated.

She also became distressed by the disparity between a recently rescued baby elephant’s new life at ENP, and the gloomy prospects of young elephants she had observed performing in public.

All domesticated elephants used in tourism in Thailand – whether for elephant riding, street begging, elephant shows and performances such as painting – have been trained from a very young age, using brutal methods in order to render them submissive.

The training method which elephants undergo is referred to as the “phajaan”. During the phajaan training ceremony, elephants are confined and chained in crush cages for days on end, and are repeatedly beaten with metal hooks, stabbed with sharp implements in their ears, whipped, starved and deprived of sleep. These young elephants have usually only just been separated from their mothers.

The Elephant Nature Foundation contends that “some elephants are mentally and emotionally damaged for life from this ordeal”.

Since the aim of the phajaan is to break the spirit of an elephant, recovery “depends on the elephant, the training, and the care after the training”, van de Water tells The Scavenger. “For example with Dok Ngern, the first elephant I rescued, it took half a year before she could socialise with other elephants”.

Upon Dok Ngern’s rescue from a life of begging and performing, she was homed at Elephant Nature Park. Dok Ngern still bears the mental and physical scars from the cruel phajaan training ritual and sustained abuse.

The Elephant Nature Foundation claims that elephants in the tourist industry face a “bleak” future. Many of the elephants now roaming the valley at the ENP sanctuary were formerly used for tourist entertainment, such as elephant riding.

Van de Water believes that elephant riding is popular amongst tourists as elephants “look so strong and people don’t think that it would harm them”. In relation to barbaric training methods, she says, “the problem is that most people don’t know”.

Many baby elephants used for these purposes in Thailand are now being bought from Burma, van de Water says. She affirms that tourist activities involving elephants present a “massive threat” to wild elephant populations in the region.

Van de Water set up organisation Bring the Elephant Home in 2004, and has now devoted her life to protecting elephants.

Sigh of the tiger

The legendary might of tigers can also disguise their suffering.

In Thailand, tourists are often enticed to visit captive tigers in facilities where visitors can pat them and pose for photographs. Sybelle Foxcroft, of conservation education group cee4life, is particularly damning of one such popular facility: the Tiger Temple.

Although touted as a “sanctuary” for tigers, Foxcroft says that the Tiger Temple – which attracts hundreds of visitors daily - preys on people’s fascination with tigers while concealing the ill-treatment of the tigers detained there.

While on a scientific stay, undertaking research on tigers in captivity, Foxcroft discovered the dark side of the Tiger Temple. She says that it was immediately apparent the Temple was “not all it was portrayed to be”.

Foxcroft’s research quickly shifted focus. “I was originally there to research Indochinese Tiger captive care, but the research quickly became an up-close look at abuse and the wildlife trade”, she tells The Scavenger.

Foxcroft says that visitors, who pose for photographs with the chained-up tigers for a fee, are usually so overwhelmed by the experience that they overlook issues of tiger welfare. “Tourists are often blinded by the beauty of tigers - they don’t look around at their captive environment, they just want the photograph”, she says.

During her first and subsequent stays at the Temple, Foxcroft found that “abuse was rampant”, and included physical violence towards the tigers. She also claims that the living quarters are grossly inadequate, comprising “small cement undersized cages with no outdoor sections. There is no enrichment, and there is no exercise”.

Disturbingly, Foxcroft also uncovered evidence of the Temple’s link to the illegal wildlife trade. An investigation by Care for the Wild International has also alleged illegal tiger trafficking by the Temple, and “systematic physical abuse” of the tigers there.

“After witnessing the first trade, I decided that I would try everything I could to stop them”, says Foxcroft. “Places like the Tiger Temple are directly linked to, and responsible for, the endangerment of tiger sub-species in the wild”.

Globally, tigers are critically endangered across all sub-species. WWF estimates that only 100 Indochinese tigers survive in the wild in Thailand. No exact figure of captive tigers is known, however there are possibly thousands.

Foxcroft believes that the public would be horrified if they knew what happened behind the scenes. “The public are inadvertently contributing to the wildlife trade, and if they knew, no decent person would go”.

But sometimes even vigilant travellers can be misled.

Australian Jasmine Bates visited Thailand with a friend and said that it was common to see wildlife displayed on the streets. “Being concerned about the treatment of animals, we checked tour leaflets thoroughly before we booked anything”, Bates tells The Scavenger.

Therefore, she says they were disappointed when a market tour culminated in a trip to see some caged gibbons. Despite her unplanned experience with the gibbons, she believes that tourists have the power to discourage the mistreatment of wildlife.

“People should take more responsibility in educating themselves before travelling”, Bates says.

For Osterberg, the image of a tiny female “photo” gibbon being dragged relentlessly around Phuket is forever imprinted in her memory. The gibbon’s unknown fate, and the helplessness Osterberg felt, has sealed her commitment to primate conservation. “She became one of an endless, but invisible, number of wild animals that are lost to the tourist entertainment industry every year”, she says.

Other victims of the wildlife trade are luckier.

Bam Bam, the turtle-hugging gibbon, is now a young adult. She has been residing at the GRP since the day she arrived as a traumatised baby. She may soon return to a life in the forest, joining the other newly-wild gibbons who have a new hope for survival in the awakening forests of Phuket.



The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project’s tour desk is open to visitors who can learn more about gibbon conservation. Some of the gibbons can be viewed from a distance.

The Elephant Nature Park is also open to visitors, who can see the elephants during a day trip or overnight stay.

Susannah Waters is an associate editor at the Scavenger. She has worked as a volunteer on several wildlife conservation and rescue projects in Thailand and other parts of Asia.

Associate Editor - The Scavenger

I am now (well, since May) an Associate Editor for The Scavenger so expect to see more of my articles on here!

Horse racing: The hidden cruelty revealed

Check out my article, "Horse racing: The hidden cruelty revealed", which was published in The Scavenger. It is about the racehorse deaths that the racing industry tries to hide. I was largely inspired by the more visible - and continuing - deaths in jumps racing. Six horses have now died on track in Victoria and South Australia since the commencement of this year's jumps racing seasons.
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Horse racing: The hidden cruelty revealed

14 May 2011

Jumps racing has been cropping up in the news after a series of track deaths in the UK and Australia. But while track deaths are problematic for racing’s image, the fate of countless other racehorses is hidden from the public, writes Susannah Waters.

While racegoers clutched betting slips and peered toward the finish line that sunny afternoon, horses Ornais and Dooneys Gate lay away from their gaze, broken and dying behind swiftly assembled screens.

The former Grand National contenders were concealed from view after suffering horrific injuries in the notoriously dangerous event, held on a long course covering 30 challenging jump fences. But the odds were stacked heavily against all 40 starting horses: only 19 were able to finish the gruelling race.  

April marked the commencement of the UK’s annual Aintree race meeting, featuring the Grand National event, and the beginning of the controversial jumps racing seasons in two Australian states.  

Jumps racing has long been steeped in controversy owing to its inordinately high mortality rate. This brand of racing, which requires thoroughbred horses to leap over a succession of fences, is estimated to be up to 20 times more fatal than flat horse racing.

The fences claimed victims early in the Victorian and South Australian jumps seasons, where five horses died after suffering traumatic on-track injuries within a four-week period. Australian jumps racing was plunged into further scandal when a horse leapt into a crowd during one of Victoria’s showpiece events, resulting in seven spectators being hospitalised.  

Ward Young, Communications Manager for the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses in Victoria, is hopeful that the recent incidents will be a catalyst for a final ban on jumps racing in Australia.

“While the racing industry and government can put on a brave face, the continuing deaths in jumps racing will wear them very thin and a tipping point will be reached where they decide ‘enough is enough’”, he tells The Scavenger.

Witnessing a horse’s death during a jumps event two years ago had a profound impact on Young, and strengthened his commitment to organise against jumps racing.

Although the sizable on-track body count has provoked a sustained campaign to end jumps racing in Australia, the high fatalities are simply acknowledged – and by all appearances, accepted – as inherent to jumps within racing circles.

Rodney Rae, president of Australian Jumping Racing, recently conceded to an Australian newspaper that "there hasn't been a jumps racing season where we haven't had a fatality". A shocking 13 horses were killed on Australian jumps tracks in 2009.

It is reported that three horses die on average at the three-day UK Aintree meeting each year. Bolstered by outrage at the recent deaths, a call to ban Aintree’s Grand National event has garnered extensive support.

More race horse deaths

But jumps racing does not exist in isolation, and should be viewed firmly within the context of horse racing as a whole. While more prevalent, racehorse deaths are not exclusive to jumps racing events – nor to the racecourse.

Since 2007, UK group Animal Aid has been recording all British on-track racehorse deaths in all types of racing. The group’s Race Horse Death Watch indicates that 68 thoroughbreds died on British racecourses as a result of racing injuries over the first four months of this year.

While it does not factor in the deaths of racehorses away from the track, it provides a rare insight into the perilous nature of horse racing. Countless causes of death are listed, including descriptions such as “injured hind leg – destroyed”, “fell – broke neck” and “collapsed and died after race”.  

Late last year, it was reported by the U.S. Jockey Club that approximately 1,500 thoroughbreds died due to injury on U.S. racecourses in the preceding two-year period.

However, independent research conducted in 2008 revealed that many deaths went unreported by racing organisations within the country, and indicated a staggering over three horse deaths per day on U.S. racecourses.  

While these deaths highlight the dangers of racing events, they are in fact just the tip of the iceberg. Track deaths are a more visible display of horse racing’s often more covert exploitation of horses.  

The screens which obscured the view of the horses killed at the Grand National are somewhat emblematic of racing’s ever-present dilemma: they demonstrate that lurking beyond its carefully constructed image of glamour and prestige, it is an industry with much to hide.

Horses slaughtered for human consumption and pet food

A rarely publicised and unpalatable fact is that many ex-racehorses, and many horses reared for the purposes of racing, end up on dinner tables in Europe and Japan. Countless others are condemned to the pet food industry.

Young says that in the past, prominent figures in the racing industry denied ex-racehorses were sent to slaughter. He says that now it is “indisputable” and a “standard practice” of the industry.

Far from retiring on idyllic green pastures, many horses are sold to slaughterhouses and knackeries once they are deemed to have exhausted their usefulness within racing.

“Retired” may evoke images of old and unsteady horses, but those discarded by the racing industry and sold to slaughter in Australia can be as young as two years old. A 2006 British report claimed that the majority of racehorses there are killed before their fifth birthdays. The normal life expectancy of a thoroughbred is around 30 years of age.

Official government figures state that up to 40,000 “failed or retired sport horses” and “feral” horses are killed yearly in Australia, specifically for the lucrative horse meat trade. However a horse meat industry insider last year said that 50,000 – 70,000 horses are slaughtered annually.

Australia is a large exporter of horse meat to overseas markets, and while it is difficult to ascertain precise numbers, evidence suggests that failed and former racehorses may comprise as many as 60% of all horses slaughtered in this industry.  

There are several reasons why so many thoroughbreds are prematurely cast off from the racing industry. A central factor is the sheer overabundance of horses being bred for racing.  

As the world’s largest breeder of thoroughbreds, there are around 1.3 million thoroughbred horses in the U.S., with up to 50,000 foals born there every year. Meanwhile, Australia is placed as the second largest thoroughbred breeder with over 17,000 foals born annually – a significant number considering the much smaller human population here.  

With masses of potential racehorses at the racing industry’s disposal, horses can be replaced quickly once they cease turning a profit.

Animal Aid claims that only 40% of foals bred for racing in the UK and Ireland actually go on to race. Australian statistics are similar.

Blinded by dollar signs

Much of the problem for racehorses stems from the way they are viewed within the racing industry. The industry promotes a culture where horses are regarded as expendable products and commodities – to be bought, sold, and ultimately discarded.

A racehorse’s value is tied directly to monetary considerations. These horses are generally not valued on their own terms, as sentient individuals. They are instead prized as profit-generating units of labour.

Racehorses’ status as replaceable commodities is entrenched in the racing industry. The language frequently used by members of the racing fraternity to refer to racehorses affirms this.

Comments likening the danger of horse racing to the risks taken by humans in sporting activities are common, and suggestive of a cavalier attitude towards horse deaths.

South Australian Thoroughbred Racing chairwoman Frances Nelson recently described horse racing as a “competitive sport” in which “accidents will happen”.

She added: "No one likes to see that happen, but in any competitive sport you will have a level of risk. The same occurs with human beings - look at footballers, look at athletes".

Her statement echoes that of David McCammon, whose horse Killyglen ran – and fell, rendering him unable to complete the race – in the recent Grand National.

“In every other sport there are dangers, just take motorcycling and car racing. You know the risk you are taking with the horses but they have been bred for racing”, McCammon said.  

The owner of Ornais, the horse who died after his neck was broken in the same event, referred to Ornais’ death as “unfortunate”, saying “we all take chances in our life”.

The parallels between horses’ involvement in racing and human participation in sports is, in reality, extremely tenuous.

The fundamental difference is the issue of consent. While jockeys and motorsport racers can provide informed consent for their participation, this cannot logically be claimed for horses.

Some contend that horses “love” to race, and that if they did not wish to, they would simply refuse to leave the starting gate - as horses sometimes do. This argument not only confuses horses’ participation with a willingness to race, but also ignores the fact that racehorses are extensively trained to be subordinate and obey commands.

This enforced subservience is an essential feature of the racing industry.

Comments made by the trainer for Dooneys Gate, the horse who died after breaking his back at the Grand National, display a corresponding attitude. Willie Mullins referred to the deceased horse as having been “a good servant to us”.  

Away from the pomp of racing events, a racehorse’s everyday life can involve the monotony of hours of confinement and a vulnerability to health conditions such as gastric ulcers, which affects up to 93% of Australian racehorses. This affliction is largely caused by stress and an unnatural diet.

Young believes that aspects of cruelty hidden from the public are fundamental to the preservation of racing and its glossy façade.

“Most people will never witness horses who are kept in their racing stables the size of a standard bedroom for 22 hours a day, or see the terrible sight of ex-racehorses who are no longer profitable waiting to receive a bullet in the head at a knackery”, he says.

The relentless pursuit to protect its image is symptomatic of an industry with a lot at stake: over $14.3 billion is poured into racing by the Australian public annually, while in excess of £12 billion is wagered by the British public. More than £250 million was gambled on 2011 Grand National day alone.  

Money is also often diverted into racing by governments. In Australia, the Victorian government has pledged to inject $2 million into jumps racing over the next four years.

But beyond the alluring sparkle of big money, exists an immense stable of misery: where many of the once-glorified winners, the fleetingly-feted champions, the old odds-on favourites, the outmoded outsiders, and the former 100-to-ones, are consigned. 

Fancy stage names now cast aside, they are reduced to a number and forgotten, while the conveyor belt of fresh horses incites a new wave of cash-coloured dreams.

Visit the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses (Australia) and Animal Aid’s Horse Racing campaign in the UK.

Images from top: Horse in knackery awaiting slaughter, courtesy of Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses; Java Star, courtesy of Uproar; Horses killed for meat; and Ledgers Dream, both courtesy of Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses.

"As long as the razor wire exists" - Detention dehumanises asylum seekers

My article on asylum seekers and the dehumanising conditions within Australian immigration detention centres, published on The Scavenger: "Detention dehumanises asylum seekers".

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Detention dehumanises asylum seekers

09 April 2011

Increasing rates of self-harm and a recent spate of suicides reveal a troubling picture of Australian immigration detention centres. Deteriorating conditions are taking their toll on asylum seekers, yet the Australian government is persisting with its policy of mandatory detention. Susannah Waters speaks to some people at the heart of the issue, and discovers the extent to which asylum seekers are dehumanised by the system.

Stepping off the plane, Mohsen Soltany was confused – he didn’t think the weather in the United Kingdom would be this hot. Baffled, he questioned the immigration officer.

“UK?”. No – not the UK. He was in Perth. Perth, Australia. 

Soltany arrived in Australia in 1999 via Malaysia – or Singapore, he’s not sure – on a journey which started in Iran and traced through Turkey. People smugglers arranged his flight to Perth, a city Soltany had no knowledge of before his arrival.

Not that he would get the opportunity to acquaint himself: after declaring himself a refugee, Soltany was transported directly to Perth Detention Centre. His next four years were spent behind the razor wire in various Australian immigration detention centres.

Staying in Iran wasn’t an option. Soltany loves his country, but firmly believes he faced certain death after trying to expose government corruption.

Through his work, Soltany - then a politically active man in his late twenties - was exposed to the corrupt dealings of the government, and was also privy to information about Iran’s infamous chain murders. After penning an anonymous letter to a newspaper condemning the government, Soltany’s house was searched by officials. Although not home at the time, he tells The Scavenger “I knew I had to leave”.

While Soltany’s unplanned arrival in Australia is symbolic of the vulnerability of asylum seekers, it is perhaps also illustrative of how government policy – however strict – cannot deter people from fleeing danger and seeking refuge here. Most of those people, like Soltany, will arrive by plane.

And many will spend months, even years, in detention centres.

Ian Rintoul first knew Soltany as a name in Villawood Detention Centre. Rintoul makes it his business to know who is behind the razor wire: he is spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, the group at the epicentre of Sydney’s refugee campaign. The 57-year-old’s involvement in refugee issues stretches back to the early 1990s, but he pinpoints the Howard era and rise of Pauline Hanson as pivotal to his participation in the movement.

When he claims that in recent years government policies on asylum seekers have both “improved and worsened”, his laugh reveals the irony is not lost on him.

“While superficial characteristics and administrative things have changed, the fundamental underpinnings of the refugee issues in Australia haven’t changed”, Rintoul tells The Scavenger. He believes that Gillard government strategies - such as mandatory detention, “stopping the boats”, and regional processing centres - mean “we’re back with all the essentials of the policies we had under the Howard government”.

Rintoul considers the “absolute punitive quality” of detention as one of the worst aspects of asylum seeker policy. Approximately 6,660 people are currently held in Australian immigration detention. Rintoul cites overcrowding, lack of services, and social isolation as instrumental to the self-harm and mental health problems within the detention centres.

Amnesty International has also criticised the conditions in detention centres, deeming them “unacceptable”. The organisation recently inspected several Australian detention centres and reported that detainees are “at grave risk of self-harm and mental illness”.  It claims that conditions are deteriorating to a point where attempted suicides are on the increase.

Of particular concern are conditions at Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre, where stays are lengthy and self-harm is increasing. More than a third of all people in Australian immigration detention live on Christmas Island.

27-year-old student Rachel Connor* has been to Christmas Island. As a volunteer English teacher at the detention centre for six weeks last year, she witnessed the fragile mental state of many of the detainees.

“The truth is that almost all of the refugees suffered from some form of mental disturbance from being in the centres, as well as the complex history of trauma they carry from previous experience”, Connor tells The Scavenger. She outlines some of the restrictions placed on the detained asylum seekers, such as “timed and monitored” recreation time. She says that detainees are not free to come and go, and that parts of the facility seem “like a prison”.

Nevertheless, Connor believes her English classes had a direct benefit on the asylum seekers, as she says the routine task of practicing the language gave them a focus, “in a context where every day feels the same without progress. Myself and many of the other teachers knew that a lot of our students would not wake up in the morning if it weren’t for our classes”.

Connor says that her students told her it was the only thing they looked forward to in the day.   

Soltany’s four years in detention were spent divided between Perth, Port Hedland and Villawood detention centres. Sipping tea in his inner city lounge room crammed with musical instruments, the now 40-year-old musician and poet contemplates the years he lost. Soltany wavers between calm reflection and palpable anger. At times his rage spills over and projects him off his seat. His brow furrows as his voice rises, and his gaze fixes on a point somewhere else – somewhere beyond the room. 

“I went very mental”, he admits. “They’re not respecting very basic human rights in detention”. Contacting the media and attempting to speak out about the conditions became a constant undertaking for Soltany. “Any channel that we could get the numbers, I would tell them - this is happening, we are on hunger strike, people here stitched their lips. I told them what was happening”, he says.

He witnessed and experienced bashings and was also placed in isolation. Released from detention in 2003, Soltany now possesses permanent residency. He is in regular contact with many detainees in the centres, and says the conditions are “still bad”.

But Soltany is adamant that the worst feature of detention is the uncertainty.

“You don’t know what will happen, that is the worst part. And you don’t know any day they can come to deport you – that is when people get stressed”, he says. “All the people going to the top of the roof and doing all this stuff, because they think maybe tomorrow… That makes them stressed”.

Rintoul agrees that the indefinite aspect of detention deeply affects asylum seekers. And so does the terminology often used to refer to them.

According to those who work with refugees, and to refugees themselves, terms such as “boat people” and “illegals” are not only misleading but also have a directly harmful effect. Nevertheless, these terms are common in the public domain - despite the fact that over 95% of asylum seekers travel to Australia by plane, and as Connor points out, “there is nothing illegal about seeking asylum”.

Research shows that the terminology does have an effect on public opinion: most people believe that the majority of asylum seekers arrive via boat.

Gode Mfashingabo works at refugee support centre the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS). The 30-year-old works with refugee youth and believes that these terms have become common as they are “much easier and more provocative to use than any other words”. Mfashingabo says that the media and politicians will use “whatever words necessary to destabilise and drive their point across”.

Soltany says that this terminology “absolutely” has a direct effect on refugees, and that it “hurts deeply - a lot”. He explains that as an asylum seeker he was variously referred to as an “illegal immigrant”, “queue jumper” and even a “terrorist”.

“Where is the queue? You run away for your life – hello, they wanna kill me! There is no queue”, Soltany says. He vigorously rejects the likelihood that the public accurately understands refugee issues. Soltany refers to his poem The Only Hope After God:

“We were the fan for the political fire, Now we find ourselves in the flames”. His poem describes being stuck in a “quagmire of prejudice”.

Mfashingabo, himself a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), agrees that the public perception of refugees is fundamentally flawed. “What they have is pretty much propaganda that is spun through the media”, he tells The Scavenger. “The public has been misinformed incredibly”.

Mfashingabo lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for three years after his ethnic group was stripped of its citizenship rights. He cannot return to the DRC as he believes it would “amount to suicide”. He says that some people’s only option is to seek refuge in another country, but what drives that decision is rarely mentioned in the media.

“Nothing serious is being discussed. Out of sight, out of mind”, Mfashingabo says, lamenting an often trivial media which features stories about shopping addiction and skateboarding dogs.  

Rintoul strongly believes the public perception is “coloured” by the way refugees and asylum seekers are presented by the media and politicians. He claims that the language is deliberate.

“It’s to create a picture, to create an attitude, to invite a particular way of looking at refugees”, Rintoul says. “When the media do it, it’s not an accident. I mean, there have been Press Council findings that asylum seekers are not illegal and the boats are not illegal and should not be referred to in that way. They are constantly referred to in that way”. 

In Rintoul’s eyes, this language and the detention of asylum seekers are techniques of delegitimising them.

“Shame!”

Soltany yells into the loudspeaker. His voice reverberates throughout Sydney’s Town Hall courtyard, and is then echoed by 150 protestors. Fijian man Josefa Rauluni died after jumping off a roof at Villawood Detention Centre a few days earlier, and the protest was organised hastily to condemn the government’s policy of mandatory detention.

Two of Soltany’s years in detention were spent at Villawood, and he says he was stressed and shocked upon hearing the news of Rauluni’s death. He says that he witnessed several suicides during his years in detention.

Last month’s suicide of a young Afghan man at Curtin Detention Centre was the fifth suicide in Australian immigration detention within a seven-month period. These deaths highlight an intensifying and pervading sense of hopelessness amongst detainees.

Soltany wrote poetry in detention to help express his feelings of despair - “as a companion to my mind”. His poems were dark, prompting his roommate to urge him, “Please write something about hope!”. But Soltany says he couldn’t: “I couldn’t find hope”. He kept writing throughout his time in detention, and last year he released a book of his poetry, Inside Out. His poetry has received wide acclaim, and he has even collaborated on a book with writer Tom Keneally, whom he considers a good friend.   

Post-detention, becoming a refugee advocate was a natural step for Soltany. He has also taken on a case worker role for many asylum seekers to assist with their claims.

Despite his distressing experiences in detention, he loves Australia and has started to recover from his mental trauma. Music was central to Soltany’s healing process, and is something he is actively pursuing with his band. He hopes that his book of poetry will help people to understand the suffering of those in detention, a place he says crushed his spirit.

Rintoul is in it for the long haul – he always knew it would be a long-term campaign. He says that although the campaign “always” faces opposition from the government, he is boosted by the small successes.

He retrieves a piece of paper from his desk - “a little list of unfinished business”. He counts and laughs: there are 16 points on the list, and he says “I think there are two of them that we’ve won”.

Rintoul believes the razor wire is emblematic: that it “cuts” Australian society by embedding a discrimination which impacts on the wider community.

“That razor wire also imprisons us, as long as we allow its existence”. 

*Not her real name