In many cultures, eating wild animals is part of their tradition. These traditions deserved to be respected but when endangered animals are involved, we think these age-old practices should be strictly regulated or even stopped to allow animal populations to recover.

Shark fin soup is a good example of an environmentally-destructive dish. That's just the appetizer.

In southern China, the joke goes, the Cantonese will eat anything with four legs except a table. Some Chinese restaurants in Jiangmen offer alligators, slugs, and sea turtle (about US$ 21 per kilogram). They also eat palm civet, which proved disastrous when the animals passed the SARS virus to humans.

But you don't have to go to China to find endangered cuisine. Some nutcase proposed to establish a group called ELEAWTA (Eating Lethal and Endangered Animals While They're Alive). We're not sure if he was serious or what but there are supposedly super-secret clubs out there that get together just to dine on endangered species. Talk about bad taste!

Most endangered animals are eaten not for their flavor but for prestige and because of some supposed health benefits such as improving the sex drive. Most of these so-called health benefits are unfounded. The eyes, whiskers, bones, eyes, and other parts of the tiger are used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure treat insomnia, malaria, meningitis, rheumatism, ulcer, typhoid, and other ailments. The demand fuels illegal trade and poaching.

The list of endangered animals that you probably didn't know end up on someone's dinner plate after the jump.