Quotes of the Day

In a fancy Bangkok restaurant, a tureen of shark's fin soup will set you back as much as $250. But the real cost is to the environment, according to WildAid, a San Francisco-based environmental foundation. WildAid says the oceans' ecosystem is under threat from the annual slaughter of an estimated more than 50 million sharks, and the organization launched a print- and TV-ad campaign in mid-2001 that shows fishermen slicing fins off sharks and kicking them back into the sea to die. The ads also warn that fins might be contaminated with mercury. The campaign has been a surprising success, says Steven Galster, director of WildAid's Southeast Asia office, who cites a recent survey in Thailand in which 32% of the respondents said they had given up the pricey delicacy. "Sharks," he admits, "usually don't elicit much sympathy."

Certainly not from Bangkok's Association of Shark Fin Restaurants, a group of about 30 Chinatown eateries. They're biting back with a $2.7 million lawsuit against WildAid and the local office of J. Walter Thompson, the New York City-based advertising agency that created the campaign for free. The charge: false claims by WildAid have caused their sales of shark dishes to drop by 50%. Last week in court, David Lau, secretary-general of the association, personally cross-examined Galster, alleging that the American conservationist had staged videos and faked photos of dying sharks. To TIME, he also claimed that Galster must have doctored the samples he sent to the lab to test for mercury (all of which Galster denies). Later, outside the courtroom, Lau seethed: "Foreigners shouldn't be allowed to come to Thailand and say anything they want. This is our culture, and you can't change it."

• Robert Horn | Bangkok
• Activists and restauranteurs grapple over shark's fin