Did you know that one-third of shark species are facing extinction? “The International Union for the Conservation of Nature reports 35% of all shark species are threatened with extinction. That number has grown nearly 50% in a decade’s time.” The reason? Overfishing. Shark fin soup is a delicacy in many countries and shark meat is highly sought. But sharks are “being killed at a rate that cannot be sustained in the future.” Taking the fins off a shark will kill the shark. It cannot be returned to the water because it will be unable to swim and will suffocate and die. Sharks take a long time to reproduce and fisheries around the world are killing 100 million sharks each year. Furthermore, as we discussed in our previous papers on ecosystems and food chains, sharks, as the top predators of many marine ecosystems, play a very important role in helping balance the ecosystem. If sharks are decimated, the absence of top predators could bring an ecological collapse.
The primary reason is overfishing; shark meat and fins are highly sought. “Hammerheads are one of the of the most critically endangered sharks- having lost 80% of their population in just the last three decades.” A huge challenge for law enforcement at the ports is determining whether shipments of shark meat and fins are in violation of CITES (the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).
One of the biggest challenges for law enforcement at ports around the world is determining whether shipments of shark fins and meat are violating CITES- The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). Many fins look the same and it is very difficult to determine whether the shark fins and meat are regulated or not. Diego Cardeñosa, a marine biologist at Florida International University is fighting the illegal trade of endangered sharks using “molecular and forensic tools to combat smuggling that stretches from Hong Kong to Latin America.” “Cardeñosa, along with fellow FIU adjunct professor Demian Chapman, came up with a portable DNA kit that looks like a small red cube. It identifies species and country of origin of shark fins and meat coming into ports.” They take a piece of the fin, run it through a machine for two hours, and can identify the shark species! WOW! “Cardeñosa said it has helped Hong Kong authorities go from seizing an average of five tons of shark fins annually before 2018 to one hundred tons since they started using the tool.” Diego Cardenosa! Remember his name. He will be a superstar!
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/28/world/a-third-of-sharks-are-threatened-with-extinction-heres-what-one-man-is-doing-to-help-iyw/index.html?cid
Seized shark fins at a Hong Kong news conference in 2018. Isaac Lawrence/AFP/Getty Images
