The Brutal Business of Shark Finning!

Every year millions of sharks die a slow death because of finning!

 Finning is the inhumane practice of hacking off the shark’s fins and throwing its still living body back into the sea. The sharks either starve to death, are eaten alive by other fish, or drown!

Shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins while the remainder of the shark is discarded in the ocean. Sharks returned to the ocean without their fins are often still alive; unable to move effectively, they sink to the bottom of the ocean and die of suffocation or are eaten by other predators. Shark finning at sea enables fishing vessels to increase profitability and increase the number of sharks harvested, as they only have to store and transport the fins, by far the most profitable part of the shark. Some countries have banned this practice and require the whole shark to be brought back to port before removing the fins.

Shark finning increased since 1997 largely due to the increasing demand for shark fins for shark fin soup and traditional cures, particularly in China and its territories, and as a result of improved fishing technology and market economics. The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Shark Specialist Group say that shark finning is widespread, and that "the rapidly expanding and largely unregulated shark fin trade represents one of the most serious threats to shark populations worldwide". Estimates of the global value of the shark fin trade range from US$540 million to US$1.2 billion (2007). Shark fins are among the most expensive seafood products, commonly retailing at US$400 per kg. In the United States, where finning is prohibited, some buyers regard the whale shark and the basking shark as trophy species, and pay $10,000 to $20,000 for a fin.

The regulated global catch of sharks reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has been stable in recent years at an annual average just over 500,000 tonnes. Additional unregulated and unreported catches are thought to be common.

Impacts on individual sharks

Removal of a shark's fins prevents it from swimming. It is therefore incapable of hunting for prey or avoiding predators. Further, some species, known as obligate ram ventilators, lack the ability to pump water through their gills and must swim without rest; these species presumably asphyxiate if unable to move.

Impact on shark populations

Some studies suggest 26 to 73 million sharks are harvested annually for fins. The annual median for the period from 1996 to 2000 was 38 million, which is nearly four times the number recorded by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, but considerably lower than the estimates of many conservationists. It has been reported that the global shark catch in 2012 was 100 million.Sharks have a K-selection life history, which means that they tend to grow slowly, reach maturity at a larger size and a later age, and have low reproductive rates. These traits make them especially vulnerable to overfishing methods, such as shark finning. Recent studies suggest changes in abundance of apex predators may have cascading impacts on a variety of ecological processes. Numbers of some shark species have dropped as much as 80% over the last 50 years. Some organizations claim that shark fishing or bycatch (the unintentional capture of species by other fisheries) is the reason for the decline in some species' populations and that the market for fins has very little impact – bycatch accounts for an estimated 50% of all sharks taken – others that the market for shark fin soup is the main reason for the decline.