UK To Outlaw Shark Finning

October 13, 2009

Release from: Divernet

Britain is to stop UK-registered fishing boats landing shark fins which have been separated from the animals.

The move, expected to be announced this week, will put a stop to the practice in which sharks are targeted purely for their fins.

Finning has been conducted in response to a lucrative demand, mainly in Asia, for shark fins. These can sell for some £200 per kilo for upmarket delicacies such as shark fin soup.

To meet these markets, sharks have been caught and their fins removed before the bodies are thrown back into the sea, with the sharks usually alive and facing a prolonged death.

The EU banned shark-finning in 2003, but loopholes have remained for fishermen wishing to engage in the practice.

An EU permit system has allowed restricted numbers of fishing vessels to continue landing quotas of separated fins, measured in terms of the ratio of fins to whole carcasses brought in.

Conservationists have long campaigned against the system which, they say, has allowed unacceptably high numbers of fins to be landed.

The EU has the ignominious record of having remained the world's largest supplier of shark fins to Asian markets.

The Government is now putting a stop to Britain’s part in the trade – and in so doing is acting ahead of the EU Fisheries Commission, which is meant to be addressing the issue of loopholes that have allowed the 2003 EU finning ban to be widely flouted.

Attention will now turn to the EU nations of Spain and Portugal, which continue to grant high numbers of permits allowing widespread finning practices.

And pressure will build on Brussels to act soon, across the board, against shark-finning activities in EU waters.