70 Million Sharks Killed Annually For Fins

Here's a video of chef Gordon Ramsey eating the dish, and visiting one of these facilities (Graphic and some language).


WARNING: Graphic Content

Recently retired Chinese NBA star Yao Ming is taking the fight against eating shark fins back to his homeland, where demand for the traditional delicacy is soaring despite efforts to ban their use and trade. Yao and British tycoon Richard Branson made an appeal Thursday in Shanghai against eating shark fins, which are a staple of high-class Chinese banquets, to a group of 30 of China’s richest and most influential businesspeople.

Critics say fishermen kill more than 70 million sharks each year for their fins, which can sell for $700 a pound (450 grams), while the soup can cost $80 a bowl. Usually, the fins are cut from the sharks and their bodies discarded, leaving them to die. Although there have been moves to ban the trade and consumption of shark fins in California and elsewhere, 95 percent are consumed in China.

I had NO IDEA this many sharks were killed yearly. I'm no PETA supporter, but I do have a problem with 'finning'. Cutting off just the fins, then throwing the sharks into the ocean to bleed to death. As China gets richer, more people are able to afford this 'delicacy' and more sharks are going to be killed. My big question is what will this do to the oceans? When you start mucking around with an ecosystem, things can go haywire, and usually in a very bad way for us humans.

Link1

Why don't they just grow fins without the shark?

Shark fin soup was once an emperor's dish. But with the record-breaking increase in wealth in China, the soup—which can fetch up to $200 per bowl—is now available to the rapidly expanding Chinese upper middle class. And that means many species of sharks, some of them already endangered, are being not just overfished, but mutilated for their fins while still alive. And then thrown back into the ocean to bleed to death

Via Gizmodo

Riiiight. That number sounds a bit inflated. Not to say it shouldn't be stopped, but 70 million? I doubt that.

reply to post by Domo1


i can assure you the number would be much more.
and if you account for the non direct killings such as by the destruction of the ecosystem, poisioning, oil spills, coral bleaching... your number would be over 100 million
asian markets drive up the slaughter of most sea animals and its disgusting. their habbit is effecting everyone.
the only positive to this is that sharks can easily repopulate if we give them their homes back. the grey nurse shark was almost extinct in australia due to culling and there numbers are on the rise (they are a harmless shark people thought was the devil)

reply to post by AwakeinNM


if you look at the size of the sharks it seems possible. they arent large and they captured quite a few just in that short video. i think 70 million is a good number

reply to post by AwakeinNM


I am slightly skeptical of that 70 million number, but it also wouldn't surprise me. These aren't all Great Whites. A lot are pretty damn small. I didn't know this until the end of the video but they're killing year old sharks that upon maturity only give birth every few years. Extinction seems pretty plausible.

reply to post by Domo1


This makes me really sad. Just another thing on the list that we arrogant humans are destroying with no thought of the consequences.

One thing that bothers me is that people are buying these dishes for an ENORMOUS amount of money. Figure $80 a bowl. If you're eating to show off can't you swing the extra 50 cents for a bullet to kill the things humanely? Seems like the first company that adopts that practice could be more humane, and charge a tiny bit more for humane fins. Win - win until the drastic decrease in population messes up the ocean.

Someone should go to china and tell them that rats are an American delicacy. Except that they'd start serving them in the restaurants here along with the pigeons they already pass off as chicken.

Originally posted by Domo1
One thing that bothers me is that people are buying these dishes for an ENORMOUS amount of money. Figure $80 a bowl. If you're eating to show off can't you swing the extra 50 cents for a bullet to kill the things humanely? Seems like the first company that adopts that practice could be more humane, and charge a tiny bit more for humane fins. Win - win until the drastic decrease in population messes up the ocean.

I am sure the buyers don't think about how they were acquired. Just that it's something considered a delicacy and so they must have it.

Either that or they just don't care. Most people don't care. Sharks are not the only animals being slaughtered. Nobody will take notice until the it starts messing up things that effect us humans.

Until then it's destroy what we want for financial gain becasue we can. Of course, not all people are like this but enough of them are.

reply to post by AwakeinNM


Like the $100 bottle of Pabst blue ribbon. I laugh every time I think about that.

reply to post by ucantcme

I am sure the buyers don't think about how they were acquired. Just that it's something considered a delicacy and so they must have it.

I think with a little education the cruelty could b done away with. Make it even more of a delicacy if the thig s killed properly, it costs more, makes you look like you care and you can show off.