Chinese tycoons join WildAid's petition

Five leading Chinese business people appeared in an advertisement urging to remove shark fins from the menu of business dinners.

The advertisement was published here Wednesday by WildAid, an international wildlife protection group.

In the ads, they pledged not to eat shark fins themselves and called on their business fellows to follow suit, in a bid to stop the slaughter of endangered sharks.

Among them there were three real estate tycoons Huang Nubo, chairman of the Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group, Feng Lun, chairman of Vantone Holdings Co. Ltd, and Hu Baosen, chairman of the board of Central China Real Estate Ltd, as well as Li Dongsheng, president and CEO of home appliance giant TCL Corporation, and Wei Xue, president of PRAP China Public Relations and Consultants Inc.

China's basketball star Yao Ming appeared in a WildAid advertisement against eating shark fin in 2006.

A large number of shark fins have been consumed at business dinners in China so it is vital that business people could join the campaign against consumption of shark fins, said May Vadjnal, chief representative of WildAid's Beijing office.

According to WildAid executive director Peter Knights, the advertisement will be put on China's leading media shortly.

Every year more than 73 million sharks are killed for increasing demand of their fins, which endangers shark population and harms ocean ecology.