Why is shark finning bad

What is a luxury to some is a headache to understaffed enforcement agencies in the U. They say that cases against shark fin vendors in those states can be hard to make. Because the shark fin trade tends to go underground, it has been compared to the illicit drug trade.

In addition, according to several law enforcement agents, fines and jail sentences for violating the shark fin ban are generally light and have little deterrent effect. Knights says a U. Almost immediately, he and his team received a tip about a supplier, and they confiscated more than 2, pounds of shark fin from a warehouse near San Francisco Bay. The accused, Michael Kwong, a shark fin wholesaler and vocal opponent of the shark fin ban who said his family had been in the business for four generations, pleaded no contest to violating the shark fin ban.

He suspects restaurants and market owners are now storing their shark fin supplies off premises—perhaps in their homes, which would be off-limits to law enforcement without a search warrant. Spiny and smooth dogfish sharks, for example, are exempt in New York State. To ascertain whether a crime has been committed, authorities must establish whether the DNA in a seized sample of soup is actually that of a shark. The specimens Ashley Spicer tests and analyzes as a part of her work in the Wildlife Forensics Lab at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife vary from suspected shark fin soup in plastic to-go containers to frozen fins in vacuum-sealed packaging.

Only two of those cases were specifically shark fin; the others were a shark attack case and a poaching case. In all, the two shark fin cases she handled in involved about 20 different shark fins. DNA testing proved successful in a recent case in Plano, Texas, one of the states where shark fin is banned. And there it was: shark fin soup. The supermarket next door was offering it too, she said. Sure enough, when the wardens went to the supermarket, Tao Marketplace, to investigate, they found nearly 40 shark carcasses, the tail fins removed, on display in the fresh fish aisle and in storage.

Wearing rubber gloves so as not to contaminate the evidence, they sealed the fins from both places in separate containers and overnighted them to a lab in North Carolina for DNA testing.

The case against the supermarket is still pending, but the restaurant owner was found guilty of selling shark fin and paid a fine: one dollar. The court also ordered Zhou to make a donation to the Animal Welfare Institute, which totaled less than a thousand dollars, Stephens says. Fines are usually less than a thousand dollars. NOAA photo. Related Read Next. Oceana image. June 3, February 20, Buy our Cookbooks. Sign Our Petitions.

Check out our must-buy plant-based cookbooks! Learn more. Being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high-quality content. Click here to Support Us. Comments Cancel reply You must be logged in to post a comment. Sign on with:. Log in to Reply. Between the pollution and the overfishing, sharks are not having a great time these days. This rampant killing of sharks is not only bad for the sharks, it's also bad for the underwater ecosystem.

Sharks are apex predators within their food chain, which means they reproduce and mature very slowly. Additionally, sharks do not easily replenish their population as other marine species can, such as sardines. Some scientists claim that if these shark populations continue to be overfished at the same rate, we may well wipe out many species within the next two decades. That said, many countries have already made shark finning illegal, and thanks to the internet, a lot more people know about the brutality of it than they did in years past.

Above all else, information exchange is key to combating this practice. Celebrities and activists alike have spoken out about it in recent years, as well, spreading the word to people who may not have even known it existed in the first place.