Fins are sliced off of sharks while their live bodies are tossed back into the ocean like trash.
A recent study found that more than 75% of people surveyed support a shark finning ban.
On the other side of the world, CCTV, has donated $70 million in time to air informative commercials about finning.
Sharks have existed since before the dinosaurs and pre-date humans by hundreds of millions of years.
Once kings of natural selection, sharks are now facing extinction due to finning.
Shark populations are extremely vulnerable because they take up to 20 years to reach sexual maturity and produce few young.
The current demand for fins makes it impossible to restore populations to previous levels.
No one is asking people to stop eating delicious soups, and shark fin soup is certainly not one of them.
Shark fins are tasteless – fins are full of cartilage, which simply serves as a thickening agent.
Changes in shark populations alter the ecological dynamics within the entire ocean because sharks are apex predators and play a major role as ecological stabilizers.
Outside of Asia, California is the largest market for fins.
Now that we’ve overfished the Bluefin Tuna, industry has turned to the sharks to cash in. Fins are worth up to $600 per pound. What happens when we overfish all of the sharks?