We’ve all seen Gordon Ramsay of Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares fame. How he screams at people, throws saucepans across the kitchen, or curse like a salty sailor on reality TV shows. However, this time around, the Michelin star Celebrity Chef shows us a softer side of himself. In a provocative and investigative documentary film about the Shark Fin trade, Gordon Ramsay’s Shark Bait shows a journey, from the consumers of Shark Fin soup right to the fisherman who carry out illegal shark finning halfway across the world.
What is Shark Bait about?
There are an estimated 100 million sharks being killed worldwide and a third of the world’s open ocean shark species being driven to extinction by overfishing, simply because of one dish: Shark Fin Soup. Fisherman fetch exorbitant rates for the fins of the shark, and little or nothing for the carcass, which has led to the wasteful and cruel practice of shark finning, which essentially means cutting off the fins of a live shark and throwing back the creature into the water to die after harvesting its fins.
The journey of the documentary begins at London’s China Town where Gordon uncovers an alarming number of restaurants serving up Shark Fin Soup. He then travels halfway across the world to Taiwan where he discovers a staggering number of shops and restaurants all selling shark fin. Taiwan is the largest center of both the shark-fishing industry and shark-fin consumption, and here Ramsay gets his first taste of the famous shark fin soup, and isn’t at all impressed by its flavor, stating that it tastes like nothing and doesn’t even add to the soups flavor which is mostly stock of ham and chicken.
What does the documentary mean to Gordon?
Gordon’s love of sharks leads him on this personal mission to investigate the fishermen at Taiwan’s fishing piers where he faces resistance and cover-ups along the way. There are hundreds of shark fins drying on rooftops near the docks, simply staggering. To put things into perspective, every adult shark killed is one step closer to their extinction.
From the shocking consumption of Shark Fins in Taiwan, Gordon Ramsay then moves on to the source of illegal shark fishing in Costa Rica. There, the industry is so lucrative that huge private docks with fortified walls have been set up. They are there to protect shark finning businesses from the prying eyes of the law. Gordon gets to experience firsthand the frowned upon practice of long line fishing in Costa Rica where fishing line baited with hundreds of hooks draw up hundreds of sharks and other innocent sea creatures such as sea turtles which is difficult potion to watch.
Finally to understand more about the Sharks, Gordon, a known lover of scuba diving, takes the plunge to scuba dive with the deadly bull shark in Costa Rican waters, his scariest challenge to date, where he comes face to face with a couple of massive Bull Sharks.
Overall, Gordon Ramsay’s Shark Bait, which aired on Sunday 16th January at 9pm on Channel 4 was a must watch film and a real eye-opener to the world of shark finning, leaving one to wonder to what extent will man go to appease his fancy.
