February 1, marks the Lunar New Year, a two-week celebration and the most important holiday for billions of people in China, SE Asia and around the world. The Tiger (虎) is the third of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.
During the festival, homes are festooned with red paper lanterns and families gather to share sumptuous feasts, enjoying symbolic dishes such as dumplings and noodles, and shark fin soup.
2022 year is the year of the Water Tiger.
The tiger shark, Galeocerdo cuvier, is one of the largest species of sharks and inhabits tropical, coastal waters. They are essential in maintaining healthy ecosystems, as a keystone species. Without a healthy population, it is only a matter of time before coastal ecosystems begin to fall out of balance, and eventually crumble all together. Tiger sharks are a species whose migration is temperature driven, as opposed to food driven.
This species of shark is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as Near Threatened. Like all sharks, this species faces pressures of overfishing and dangerous fishing practices, marine pollution, and the changing ocean conditions, such as increasing temperatures and acidity. Now, thanks to the latter, tigers are facing a change in their habitat and shifting prey distribution, influencing migration patterns and, as a result, new threats.
People born in years of the Tiger are vigorous and ambitious, daring and courageous, enthusiastic and generous, self-confident with a sense of justice and a commitment to help others for the greater good.
Shark Stewards and our partners at ScubaZoo in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia wish everyone an auspicious and healthy new year, one without COVID and a celebration without shark fin soup!