Amazon Selling Shark Fin Products

January 7th, 2007

It seems that Amazon.com is carrying shark fin soup and other products through three third-party vendors Roland, Pacific Rim Gourmet, and VitaminLife. With the devastating effects of shark fin harvesting practices being suffered around the world, I hope that Amazon will move quickly to remove these and all future products of the sort from their offerings. I’ve always believed that Amazon is a terrific company, but how they choose to deal with this will influence my opinion of them. So far, this controversy has taken a few turns, as coverd by Divester.

If this bothers you, here’s what you can do:

1. Leave feedback at Amazon’s product page for Roland Shark Fin Soup, Dragonfly Shark Fin Soup, and VitaminLife.
2. Participate in the discussion over at Amazon about the product and why it’s bad for them to carry it
3. Send e-mail to Roland Food at Phyllis.Goldberg@rolandfood.com, Pacific Rim Gourmet at customerservice@pacificrim-gourmet.com, VitaminLife at customerservice@vitaminlife.com, and write letters of protest to:

   Pacific Rim Gourmet
   75-5660 Kopiko Street, Suite C7-210
   Kailua-Kona, HI 96740

   VitaminLife
   15940 Redmond Way
   Redmond, WA 98052

4. Write to Amazon.com at Advantage Customer Service (advantage@amazon.com) and
   Investor Relations (ir@amazon.com)
5. Spread the word through your webpage, blog, etc. (code available here)
6. Boycott Amazon.com until they comply
7. Join the discussion in the Wetpixel forums

Update 1-15-07:

It looks like all of our efforts paid off, based on this report from Divester. Amazon has apparently pulled all of its shark fin products.

Entry Filed under: Environment