Hong Kong: Scientists Trace Shark Fin Trade

This Hong Kong market is the epicenter of a billion-dollar-a-year industry. According to the World Wildlife Foundation, fifty percent of all shark fins sold in the world come through here.

Shark fins are the main ingredient in shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy served mainly at special occasions like weddings. The practice has been popular in China for thousands of years, but shark fin soup is controversial because of the methods used to bring many of the fins to market.

Fisherman saw off the shark’s fins and then throw the rest of its body back into the water, where it slowly sinks to the bottom and dies. It’s called shark finning.

While shark finning is a cruel practice and if it continues to be largely unmonitored or regulated, certain shark species may become extinct.

[Demian Chapman, Institute for Ocean Conservation, Stony Brook University]:
“Sharks have been swimming around our oceans for about 400 million years and we are actually on the brink of wiping out a lot of these species.”

Chapman is part of a new DNA research project that has traced scalloped hammerhead shark fins from Hong Kong markets back to the sharks‘ geographic origin, using Genetic Stock Indentification.

[Demian Chapman, Institute for Ocean Conservation, Stony Brook University]:
„When we go into the Hong Kong market and we take a fin and we just figure out what type that fin is, and then we can actually trace it back to our map to see where it comes from.“

By having a forensic map of the fish, scientists and policy makers can better create and enforce rules on where and, more importantly, where not to fish.

The U.S. has proposed that the International Trade in Endangered Species Group list the scalloped hammerhead and five other shark species under the organization’s Appendix II.

[Demian Chapman, Institute for Ocean Conservation, Stony Brook University]:
„Sharks in general and the hammerhead in particular have such a price on their head that unless we regulate this trade I would say in 20 years or so, it will be way before 20 years before we see them start disappearing from particular places. Large swaths of habitat will be devoid of hammerhead sharks. In fact it is probably already like that.“

The group will consider listing the sharks at its March meeting in Qatar.

(NTDTV)