Tesco have just announced that they're going to stop selling shark fins in their stores in Thailand.
This follows some bad press on the issue and subsequent lobbying by the Shark Trust to clean up their act.
Sharks are a dividing issue with people – some people love them and are
fascinated by them, others are terrified of them. Whilst sharks have an
ferocious and fearsome reputation, and any shark attack or alleged
sightings of man-eating great whites off Cornwall make the news, we
rarely hear of the impact we humans are having on sharks. And we are
having an enormous impact.
Big sharks, like other big fish (swordfish, marlin, tuna, etc) are
languishing at a mere 10 per cent of their numbers in our oceans
compared with 50 years ago. And it's all down to humans and their
appetites for fish.
Some species are killed directly, but many, many more are the
unwitting victims of fishing gear aimed at something else, and are
caught as bycatch. Probably the most heinous culprits are the long-lines and vast purse-seines
used in tuna fisheries in tropical waters. The numbers of sharks caught
and killed is huge, and in (at least) the tens of millions every year,
simply ‘accidental' victims of indiscriminate fishing.To read more go to
Stop Sharkfinning's MySpace
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Maldives imposes historic ban on shark fishing
The Shark in your soup had his fins chopped off then was returned to the ocean to die an agonizing death.
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