By David Fleshler |South Florida Sun-Sentinel
June 8, 2008

Shark kills surfer off Mexico.

Man bitten by shark in New Smyrna Beach.

Austrian tourist dies after Bahamas shark attack.

These events grab the public's attention, but the past few years have been far worse for the sharks.

At the China Pavilion restaurant of Greenacres, a tureen of Dragon Phoenix shark fin soup costs $59.95. At the Silver Pond restaurant of Lauderdale Lakes, the most expensive variety costs $110.

Once served at the banquet tables of Ming emperors, the ancient delicacy has grown so popular that the world's shark populations have been devastated. Driving the market is the rise of the middle class in China.

On the east coast of the United States, where most shark fishing boats operate out of Florida, federal regulators have cut quotas to allow shark populations to recover. Congress is considering a bill to toughen the ban on finning, in which fishermen chop the fins off the live shark and throw it back into the ocean to die.

"Sharks are the biggest mass slaughter of large wildlife happening on the planet today," said Peter Knights, executive director of WildAid, a conservation group. "Sharks have been around for 400 million years, and we're looking at basically wiping them out in one human generation."

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