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Shark finning is a practice where sharks are caught, hauled on board, their fins sliced off, and then the still-living, finless bodies are tossed overboard.
Unable to swim or breathe by keeping in motion, the sharks endure a painful death from suffocation, blood loss, or predation by other species.  Photo: Rob Stewart This is resulting in sharks being killed at wildly unsustainable rates for their fins. In a study of the shark fin trade published in the October 2006 edition of Ecology Letters, it was estimated that the harvest of sharks for their fins is between 26 million and 73 million sharks each year.
“The shark fin trade is notoriously secretive. But we were able to tap into fin auction records and convert from fin sizes and weights to whole shark equivalents to get a good handle on the actual numbers,” says lead author Shelley Clarke, Ph.D, an American fisheries scientist based in Hong Kong and Japan.
If these figures are converted to the weight of the entire shark, the total is three to four times higher than shark catch figures reported to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). This suggests that there is a huge shark fin trade that is largely ‘off the books’ of the world’s legal fisheries. Shark finning has become a multi-million dollar industry, with probably a good percentage of it illegal.
There are 17 nations that have outlawed the practice of shark finning and yet the practice continues. Poaching goes on in national waters, in off-limits preserves, and in the largely un-policed international seas. Countries such as Ecuador and Costa Rica have strong shark finning regulations but don’t aggressively police the shark-rich, protected areas of the Galapagos and Cocos Island. Sharks are poached in the Pomene reserve of Mozambique, where fishermen get $280 per kilo of shark fins. Wherever there are sharks, there are people after their fins. While there have been cases of illegal shark fin activity being stopped, most of it is not.
While filming his movie Sharkwater, Rob Stewart uncovered an illegal shark finning ring run by what he claims to be the Chinese mafia operating in Costa Rica, exposing just how corrupt and deadly the industry has become.
Customs data shows that more than 100 countries are involved in the business of trading in shark fins. Most are exporters while the main consumer nations are mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. The United States and the European Union also import significant quantities to local Chinese communities.
While there are many causes for the decline in shark populations, shark finning is no doubt one of the main contributors. Shark finning is a worldwide problem that can only be solved by a conscious effort on a global scale.
Nations and regions that have passed some shark finning regulations:
American Samoa
Australia (most States and Territories)
Brazil
Canada
Costa Rica
Ecuador
European Union
Nicaragua
Oman
Palau
Panama
Seychelles (foreign vessels only)
South Africa (in national waters only)
USA
References:
NY Times, Hidden Cost of Shark Fin Soup: Its Source May Vanish, by JUAN FORERO, January 5, 2006
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS, Yearbook of Fishery Statistics, 2005
Global estimates of shark catches using trade records from commercial markets, Shelley Clarke, Ecology Letters , Volume 9, Issue 10, Page 1115-1126, Oct 2006
Sharkwater , directed by Rob Stewart. www.sharkwater.com
DNA Helps Nab Illegal Shark Fin Traders, By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer, August 16, 2006;
Mozambique: Illegal Shark Fishing in Inhambane , AllAfrica.com, October 10, 2007
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