Alibaba.com selling wildlife products including shark fins

06/05/2006 00:00:00 Alibaba, the huge web trading site part owned by Yahoo! is none too picky about what is sells, and the fuss is growing. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has recently launched a campaign to boycott Yahoo! due to their promotion of shark fin sales. (See below).

A 10 minute search on Alibaba.com found various other products that we were surprised to see being sold openly. A ‘Northern leopard cat skin’, an ‘ivory ball’, and turtle eggs were all available in addition to the shark fins. And it does seem that there has been a surprising amount of mammoths discovered recently from the amount of ‘mammoth ivory’ on sale.

Yahoo! Invests in Shark Finning
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was recently alerted to Yahoo! Inc.'s investment in the deplorable shark fin industry. Yahoo! is a 40% owner of Alibaba, a Chinese company that trades in shark fins and contributes to the senseless and agonizing deaths of sharks worldwide.

Sea Shepherd has received numerous inquiries in recent weeks about the removal of its listings from GoodSearch and Freelanthropy Search, search engines that contribute a portion of the proceeds from each search to the nonprofit organization of the user's choice. Regrettably, these search engines are powered by Yahoo!, and despite its support of their mission in theory, Sea Shepherd simply cannot in good conscience benefit from a company such as Yahoo! that invests in the despicable shark fin industry.

In September 2007, Sea Shepherd Founder and President, Captain Paul Watson, wrote a letter to the President of Yahoo! asking, ‘Is this the legacy that you want Yahoo to leave-the destruction of the world's sharks for shark fin soup in China?’ He did not receive a reply. Sea Shepherd has urged its supporters to voice their opposition to shark finning by writing a letter to Yahoo! and its partners. Tell them you will not use their services until they STOP condoning the violent murder of innocent sharks.

Click here to see the letter from Paul Watson