European conservationists are joining a campaign to call for a worldwide ban on shark finning — where sharks are caught, their fins cut off while they are still alive, and then the sharks are dumped back in the water.

According to The Shark Trust and the European network of Sealife Centres, human beings kill up to 100 million sharks each year, with many sharks killed just to harvest their fins for use in soup.

Shark finning is a lucrative business, with a single fin from a whale shark or a basking shark being worth as much as $14,500. Total exports of shark fins from Europe in 1999 totaled an estimated 2 million tons.

The United States has prohibited shark finning in its territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea since 1993, and in February 2002 extended that ban to its Pacific Ocean waters. Finning is also prohibited by state law as well in most coastal states.

Source:

Global shark-finning ban urged. Alex Kirby, The BBC, April 26, 2002.