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THE WITNESSI saw six sharks being cut up for their fins a few days ago. And as monstrous as it was, I know it won’t make headlines, it isn’t news. Currently, the fins from an estimated 26 million to 73 million sharks are sold each year, that’s up to 8,000 sharks killed an hour.
And the market is booming.
A shark is pulled up as by-catch in the Indian Ocean
Late last year, while I was onboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, we discovered a Taiwanese ship, the Sheng Chi Hui Number 7, catching and finning sharks in Palauan waters. This is a sad, destructive and unfortunately widespread practice in the Pacific Ocean: sharks are caught, their fins cut off and the bodies thrown back into the ocean, left to die. Millions of sharks are caught for their fins every year in this way for making shark fin soup, an expensive delicacy served mostly in Asian nations. Continue reading