WASHINGTON (CN) — Overfishing and finning of whitetip sharks have reduced the species population by as much as 90 percent in some areas, the National Marine Fisheries Service says, and it wants the species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
International demand for shark fins is the main “economic force driving the retention and subsequent finning of oceanic whitetip sharks taken as bycatch in commercial fisheries worldwide,” the NMFS said Thursday in its listing proposal.
Finning is the controversial practice of cutting fins off live sharks and throwing them back into the ocean to die.
Shark fins, served as shark fin soup, command high prices in the international market, up to the U.S. equivalent of $45 to $85 per kilogram in Hong Kong, the world’s largest market for shark fins.
