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Shark Fishing & Finning

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Shark fishing and shark finning images and facts - this gallery seeks to educate about the grim reality that is the practice of shark finning. Shark finning is the practice of removing the fins from sharks for use in soups and traditional medicines. In many cases the shark is still alive when the fin is removed and the animal is thrown back into the water. Once it is thrown back, it will be either eaten by predators or suffocated from not being able to pass oxygen over its gills. While not every shark harvested for shark fins is finned alive, the practice is widespread because it saves time and cargo space. Shark meat is worth a fraction of the value of the shark fin. It is worth noting, too, that consumption of shark meat may lead to ingesting dangerous amounts of mercury, a toxin that accumulates in the meat of apex predators such as sharks. In China and other countries of East Asia, shark fin soup represents a special honor to guests on ceremonial occasions. This is a time-honored tradition, going back to the days when sharks were difficult to catch and consequently rare. In addition to the use of shark fin in shark fin soup, shark has also been harvested for use in traditional Eastern medicines.

Some shark species populations have decreased by 80% in the last 50 years. This is not due to the market for shark fin alone. Many sharks are caught by commercial fishing boats as bycatch. Some progress has been made toward banning shark finning in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and it is banned in the Eastern Pacific; however, shark finning remains unregulated in international waters. Although shark finning is banned in countless countries including China, the United States, and the United Kingdom, shark finning is still practiced globally.

Sharks are harvested for a variety of uses. Their blood has been used as an anticoagulant, their cartilage for burn treatment and cancer fighting medicines, their organs for fish feed, their fins for soup, their flesh for fertilizer, their teeth for ornaments and ceremonial weapons, their liver for oil, and their skin for shoe leather and hand grips. While finding a variety of uses for sharks is better than finning them and leaving them to die, the over exploitation of sharks has put many shark species on the brink of extinction. Worldwide, people must join together in protecting sharks before it is too late.
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