Sharks Suffer All In The Name Of Soup

September 10, 2009

Release from: Tony Carnie
The Star (South Africa)

Foreign fishermen are still hacking the fins off sharks in South African waters and tossing them back into the sea while they are still alive.

Most of these butchered sharks drown, starve or get eaten by other predators because they are no longer able to swim or to hunt properly.

"Finning" the deliberate removal of fins from living sharks is illegal in South Africa, but anglers in Richards Bay and Mossel Bay have produced photographic evidence of at least two sharks which managed to survive despite crippling wounds.

Millions of sharks are believed to die in this way every year because of the growing demand for shark fin soup, which is considered a delicacy at weddings and banquets in China and other Far East nations.