WHAT'S FINNING?
Finning is the process whereby the fins of the shark are cut off and the rest of the animal is discarded, most often while the animal is still alive. The shark sinks to the bottom and dies a slow and agonizing death by either bleeding out, being eaten by other fish or slowly suffocating.
Sharks cannot swim or float without fins and most species cannot breathe while stationary. Fins will not grow back.
Finning is an utterly cruel and wasteful practice, and it has been banned in many countries in recent years. Finning exists due to the high demand and high profit margin for shark fins, which are the main ingredient for Shark Fin Soup.
Even if finning doesn’t take place at sea, and sharks are brought to land before they are finned, millions of sharks are wasted simply because of the value the fin represents. The bodies are often discarded or sold as a low grade product.
The Shark Finning Prohibition Act was signed by President Bill Clinton in 2000. This Act prohibits finning by any vessel in U.S. waters, as well as the possession of fins by any U.S. fishing vessel in international waters. It also bans any fishing vessel from landing at a U.S. port with shark fins if the weight exceeds 5% of the total weight of shark carcasses landed or on board. Of course, these provisions left many loopholes-
There are discrepancies in the estimates of the number of shark fins that are actually entering and leaving the United States. Fins can change hands multiple times; they are moved from one country to another, imported and exported, then re-imported once processed.
They are loaded and reloaded from fishing vessels out at sea to larger transportation vessels, from ships to docks, either finned or still attached to a shark. They get moved from bags to container, from shipyards to transportation companies, to processing locations, and back again. Some shipments are labeled as shark fins, others are mixed in with other random seafood or bycatch. This is the reason why none of the export and import numbers add up and why authorities don't have a handle on what might be legal or illegal. There is no confusion when fin trade is not allowed across the board, no matter how they were obtained or where they came from.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), other countries reported exporting 1,012 metric tons of shark fins to the United States in 2007. However, that same year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) only reported 28.8 metric tons of shark fin imports.
In 2011, NOAA reported 38 metric tons of shark fin exports from the United States, yet according to the FAO, other countries reported importing 295 metric tons of shark fins from the United States.
It is clear that we can't tell the difference between domestic and imported fins. Only a full trade ban can ensure that we are not participating in the global trade of fins.
Having a clear ruling makes it infinitely easier for enforcement agencies, which are underfunded and understaffed in just about every single state. They do not have the capacity to police every ship at sea and they cannot control what is landed every day in every harbor.
With shark and shark fins, there is the added problem of identifying species. In the case of fins, once they are cut off, they are often indistinguishable unless a DNA test is done, making it extremely hard to tell whether they came from endangered species or not. It is also hard to trace whether they came from state or federal waters, whether they were imported, transshipped at sea or taken locally. There are so many ways to get around the rules that enforcement becomes impossible.Â
A law that stops the sale and trade takes care of the majority of these loopholes, because it doesn't matter where the fin came from, why it was taken, or what species it came from. It can also be enforced on land (ports, airports, restaurants, shops, transport companies) and alleviates the problem of relying on fisheries enforcement, which usually takes place only at sea or at the docks.
Read more from Shark Allies and see current campaigns to end finning and #saveoursharks