Shark finning is brutal and sad (and disgusting)
EarthSky
Infographic should be here. Wish damn phone'd let me post it.
I did not know much, if anything, about the practice of shark finning. When I looked, I found that fishermen who practice it remove shark fins at sea and (typically) toss the rest of the shark. The shark is usually still alive when it goes back into the water. It can’t swim without its fins, and it slowly sinks toward the ocean bottom, where it suffocates or is eaten alive by other fish.
Why do fishermen do it? Shark fins are used to make shark fin soup, a delicacy in China. According to animalsright.com, a single bowl of shark fin soup can cost $100 or more.
David Shiffman (@WhySharksMatter on Twitter) is a marine biologist studying shark feeding ecology and conservation. He’s an outspoken and knowledgeable advocate for sharks. When I asked him about shark finning, he questioned the precision of the estimates used in the infographic above, saying:
It’s really hard to estimate how many sharks are killed worldwide every year. Lots of places don’t report data accurately.
But he agreed that it’s important to ban finning, within the larger perspective of reducing overfishing by other means. And he provided a link to a journal article that provides data on bycatch versus targeted shark fishing versus finning. ... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X13000055
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