A History of Shark Fishing

Fish stocks worldwide are being severely and systematically depleted by a fishing industry that seems to care nothing about the marine environment or its own future. Take the great cod fishery in Canada, which for more than half a millennium supplied Northern Europe with protein, but in a short period of time has been so overfished that it is no longer commercially viable and may never recover.

The industry continues to plunder its own diminishing resources not because of growing demand by consumers but because of perverse government subsidies. Japan alone, the world’s largest subsidiser, gives US$2-3 billion annually to its fishing industry.

Perhaps the most tragic example is the tale of the shark, so well-adapted to its place at the head of the food chain that it has changed little in millions of years and is one of Earth’s oldest vertebrates. Yet it is being hunted to extinction for its fin, used to make a soup that lacks nutrition and taste.

Shark fins have been used in Chinese haute cuisine for centuries, first served at banquets for Ming Dynasty emperors. Their elevated reputation were due to their dangerous reputation, which made them expensive to source; the risk involved in its capture served as a tribute to the emperor.

As the historical hub of the entrepôt trade for China, Hong Kong has long been the world’s largest fin-trading centre, handling at least half of the global trade. And the incentive for continued exploitation is there: recent figures indicate that the minimum global value of the trade is between US$400 million and US$550 million a year.

Yet the shark has survived easily over the centuries despite being a valued delicacy because the demand for shark’s fin soup was easily met. During the Mao Zedong and early Deng Xiaoping eras, consumption on the mainland was discouraged by policies of cultural reform and priced beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest. That changed with China entering the global free-trade market. With its rapid increase in wealth, the present massive demand has developed only since the mid-1980s. The result is oceans are literally being scoured clean of sharks, with poachers invading national marine parks like the Galápagos Islands to catch them.

Why Sharks are Especially Vulnerable

Compared to other sea creatures, sharks are hard to protect. Seals are cute and dolphins are intelligent, but sharks show their teeth and look menacing. And of course, sharks kill people – although less than five people per year die as a result of shark attacks, less than from bee stings.

Sharks play an important role in the marine ecosystem as both predators and scavengers, stabilising healthy fish populations by eliminating diseased or genetically defective animals. When shark populations decline, the whole marine system suffers. Take the example of the spiny lobster in Tasmania. The slaughter of sharks that fed on octopus there led to an increase in octopus populations that feed on lobster, and the lobster has now all but disappeared.

Sharks are difficult to protect for other reasons: They do not lay thousands of eggs. Many species of shark take up to 15 years to reach maturity and then produce only one pup per year. Such a slow reproduction rate means that their populations may never recover if the present damage being inflicted on them is left unchecked.

And not much is being done about it internationally. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, (CITES), set up in 1975, added the great white shark as an endangered species in 2001, and the basking shark and whale shark in 2002. But CITES is a voluntary agreement, and the fact that there has been no appreciable drop in imports to Hong Kong speaks for itself.
Apart from CITES, there is no other monitoring of trade in Hong Kong. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department keeps an eye on the import of endangered species but says that it relies largely on visual identification, so processed shark’s fin is likely to escape detection.

What the Consumer Can Do

There is hope for the shark, but only if people speak out en masse and there have been grass-root efforts. A recent campaign by Hong Kong schoolchildren against plans to offer shark’s fin soup at Disneyland resulted in its withdrawal from the park’s menus. Shark’s fin soup is traditionally served at wedding banquets, but several top hotels and restaurants such as the JW Marriott, The Excelsior, The Jockey Club and The Langham have commendably signed up for the “Alternative Shark-free Menu”, organised by the WWF. At the JW Marriott, a wide selection of other soups can be substituted for the shark-fin course, including black chicken soup, fish maw soup, or even bird’s nest soup. Couples who choose the shark-fin free menu are then offered a two-night complimentary stay at the Marriott Resort & Spa in Sanya.

Those who are still keen on the delicacy should also keep this in mind: Tests in 2004 by the government found that 10 per cent of all dried seafood sampled (the majority of which was sharks’ fins) contained impurities such as hydrogen peroxide and the carcinogen formaldehyde, believed to be used as bleaching or finishing agents.

Ultimately, we can solve the problem by making the right choices about food. As Stuart Beck, the United Nations ambassador from Palau, put it at a recent UN conference on fish stocks: “Only concerted outrage can save the world’s sharks from being slaughtered for the delectation of soup lovers.”

So next time you see shark’s fin soup on the menu, think long and hard. And then choose something else.