Things are worse than the public realizes

Shark populations are endangered due to multiple threats. The biggest threat by far is the trade of fins. Much of what goes on in commercial fisheries goes unnoticed.

• 100 million sharks are killed each year and the fins from up to 73 million sharks are sold for shark fin soup.

• 70% of the 14 most common shark species involved are considered at high or very high risk of extinction.

• Some shark populations have declined by more than 90% in recent decades due to overfishing. 

• More than 70 shark species are at risk of extinction.

Focusing on the trade

Individual fishermen may make a little bit of extra money from fins, and restaurants may enjoy the status of offering the dish, but the real money is made by the traders. The same organizations that deal with fins are often involved in other illegal dealings, such as other endangered species products or drug trafficking. The sale and trade of a product that rivals the drug trade must be addressed differently than other fisheries management issues. 

The profits made from fins ensure that the overfishing of sharks continues, year after year. It will only end when we run out of sharks. Shark fin trade laws address the trade of a product that is harming us all, no matter where you live or what you do for a living. Recreational and subsistence fishermen do not need to worry that their fishing rights are affected, as long as they do not try to profit from the sale of fins.  

A Major Lack of Oversight (United States)

As stated in the 2011 Shark Conservation Act, you are legally required to enter U.S. waters and ports with whole shark carcasses, you are not allowed to enter U.S. waters or ports carrying just the shark fins. Regardless of this provision to attempt to close up loopholes of the 2000 Shark Finning Prohibition Act, once a fin is cut off of a shark it is extremely difficult to eye-ball if it is from a protected species. Without DNA analysis, which is expensive and time consuming, it is very difficult to identify if it comes from a protected and/or endangered species.

In 2017, according to a study done at the Hong Kong Fish Market, a significant number of fins that were bought and sold belonged to CITES listed species. In the words of the NRDC, this is due to a lack of oversight for ESA and CITIES species and “likely common in shipments that transit U.S. borders.” To make matters even worse, the NRDC has found that many states that transship via the United States are unable or unwilling to report their catch. How is this acceptable?

NOAA Tracking vs. fao tracking (United States)

Recently the FAO criticized NOAA for two main issues in regards to reporting. Currently, “dried” is the only commodity code for shark fins. It does not include frozen, smoke or any other type of preservation. This resulted in a major difference between the statistics and numbers of fins that the FAO gathered versus the what the United States reported. Non-profit organization, Oceana, concluded the lack of a commodity code, “wet” fins, mean that countless fins were mislabeled and likely thrown in as “seafood.” Adding to this confusion, NOAA found thousands of fins labelled as “shark skin.” Starting in 2017, NOAA fisheries started recording fins as more than “dry” codes, and that car the imports and exports of shark fins recorded skyrocketed compared to previous years.