History

How long has shark fin hunting been occurring?

• Chinese used shark fins in shark-fin soup since Han Dynasty (Spiegel 2001)

How many sharks are being impacted?

• estimated that over 100 million sharks per year die in fishing/finning process (Spiegel 2001)
• Baker modeled the market using molecular identification techniques and commercial trade records and found that the shark biomass of the shark fin trade was 3-4 times higher than reported (Baker)
• A decline of 99 percent from 1950’s to 1990s of whitetip sharks in the Gulf of Mexico (Williams 2008)
• Although there are limitations to this as we don’t know the causation, it might be due to global warming.

Why has shark finning impacting sharks greatly?

• Due to slow growth and late sexual maturity, and low offspring numbers sharks cannot keep up with this practice of mass-slaughtering. (Spiegel 2001)
• Critically endangered species like the sawfish shark are being targeted as their fins are more valuable.

What countries are involved in hunting, and what countries are responsible for consumption?

• Hong Kong is the largest importer and is one of the largest re-exporters. (Cheung 2011)
• Spain is the largest supplier of shark fins to Hong Kong, Norway,Britain, France, Portugal, Italy are also major suppliers.
• Shark fins is mainly consumed in China and Hong Kong