These agreements require the shark carcass to arrive at the dock with the shark, or if severed, on an agreed fin to body ratio. Shark fins can be sold legally in countries with anti- finning regulations, yet the source of the fin and method killed can still be illegal. Currently there are very few regulations on the sale of shark fins globally. The US imports shark fins from countries that do not have shark finning bans including China, India and Indonesia. However, state-level bans do not bar the import of foreign-caught shark products into the United States. In the USA, the sale of fins is banned in 14 states including California, New York and Hawaii. The shark fin trade is global and widespread. Shark Fin Alley, Hong Kong © Can Shark Fins be Sold Legally? The best solution to save sharks will rely on national and international efforts to regulate fisheries, and local efforts to limit consumption of shark fin and stopping the fin trade. However, small boats and nations who do not recognize CITES or other treaties are actively shark finning and trading with impunity. Although over 100 species are listed by the IUCN as endangered or threatened, only a few species are protected from illegal trade by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES). This is a good start but difficult to enforce against smugglers or poachers. The ICCAT and the West PAC: member commissions of Atlantic and Pacific pelagic fisheries have banned shark finning in their tuna and swordfish longline fleets. A few, such as the United States and Australia, have successfully enforced these new laws, yet fins are still legally sold of from landed sharks, and Loopholes can lead to a misrepresentation of species captured, smuggling of fins, and more sharks killed than actually reported. Since 2000 several countries including the United States have adopted laws within their waters to ban this practice. Shark finning is wasteful, inhumane and unsustainable. The high value and increased market for shark fins is creating huge incentive for fishermen to take the fins and discard the animal, leaving room in the ship’s hold for the more valuable meat of the tuna or swordfish.
This reprehensible and wasteful act is largely driven by the high value placed ion the fin, and the low value off shark meat, Sharks captured as bycatch- (an untargeted animal)- in the tuna and swordfish industry were once released, but are increasingly killed for the fins. Shark finning is the practice of removing the fins from a captured shark, and discarding the animal at sea, still living or dead.
Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.Sign the Petition What is Shark Finning ? One Instagrammer wrote: “I got excited for 10 seconds.”Īnother said: “Haha - that would’ve got my heart racing.” Shark enthusiasts in the comments admitted they, too, had briefly got their hopes up. “So close, but so far! The Megalodon (Otodus megalodon), disappeared more than 3 million years ago and will likely stay that way, but, for a few minutes, we thought he had returned!” They continued: “We waited for one of the rods to go off however, much to our disappointment, the shape started to transition into a large school of Atlantic mackerel that hung around the boat for about 15 minutes.
#SHARK OUTLINE FREE#
Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletterĪlongside the text, they shared an image of what was captured on their scanning equipment, which did resemble the outline of a shark.īut, unfortunately, Megalodon hopefuls were left disappointed as the experts went on to explain that the mass eventually began to break up to reveal that it has actually been a very large school of mackerel. “Based on the length of the image we estimated the ‘Meg’ to be about 50 feet long, weighing in at 40 tons!” The post read: “Does the Meg exist? On a recent shark research trip we were all amused to see this shape appear on our fish finder for several minutes. So, when The Atlantic Shark Institute detected a giant mass on their equipment, thoughts turned to what it could possibly be and they posted on Instagram to share their findings. The Natural History Museum said: “Estimates suggest it grew to between 15 and 18 metres in length, three times longer than the largest recorded great white shark.”
The Megalodon dates back to around 20 million years ago and is the largest shark to have ever existed. The shape of what appeared to be the outline of the prehistoric beast was captured by shark scanners scouring the depths of the ocean, posing the question of whether it is really extinct. Experts have solved the mystery of what appeared to be a 50-foot Megalodon shark at the bottom of the ocean.