Finning: cruel, wasteful practice
Shark finning remains a cruel and wasteful practice that also weakens shark conservation and fisheries enforcement
- The Environmental Justice Foundation is cited for reporting illegal shark-fin landings in Dakar.
- Senegal applies shark-retention restrictions and a fin-weight limit to deter finning in Atlantic fisheries.
What happened
Shark finning is the removal of shark fins, often while the shark is still alive, followed by discarding the body. The practice matters because it is cruel, wasteful, and strongly associated with illegal trade in shark products.
Illegal shark fins continue to be landed in Dakar, Senegal, by Chinese and Taiwanese longline tuna vessels. The Environmental Justice Foundation is cited for that finding, and the fins are shipped to parts of Asia for shark fin soup and for traditional medicine uses.
UPSC can link shark finning to biodiversity loss, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, international fisheries regulation, and the challenge of enforcing conservation rules on the high seas and in port states.
Related dispatches
