By ELISE VOLLWEILER - The Nelson Mail | Saturday, 01 December 2007

Catching sharks for their fins and discarding the rest of the fish is "abhorrent" and is not condoned by the industry, fishing representatives say.

A Department of Conservation ranger came across 30 sand sharks with their fins cut off by commercial fishers in the waters of Abel Tasman National Park this week. Some of the fish were still alive when they were thrown back.

French Pass tour boat charter operator Danny Boulton said shark "finning" was common in the Marlborough Sounds.

But Federation of Commercial Fishermen president Doug Saunders-Loder said on Friday he thought the Abel Tasman incident was isolated, and he did not think shark finning happened on a large scale in the region.

In New Zealand, sharks can be legally caught and their fins removed, but the fish must be killed before being thrown back into the water. Mr Saunders-Loder said he did not know the details of the Abel Tasman incident but he felt that the sharks would have been bycatch.