[News] Australia hammered over shark fin exports

[NewsBot]

Using data from the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), figures have revealed that Australia’s shark fin exports are killing thousands of sharks each year. Using data from the Australian Quarant...

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[Newbie_spearo]

The catch of any shark apart from a gummy shark should be made illegal with a jail time penalty. I watched sharkwater and was horrified when I saw all those fins on the rooves and the finning of the sharks with the rest just being thrown back in. If you're going to kill an animal the least you could do is make use of all of it and not waste 95% of it.

[kmo]

It doesn't say in the article that the rest of the shark is thrown back does it? There is a pretty decent market for 'flake' or shark fillets in Aus and probably overseas.

Commercial fishing can be hard to justify in any form if you look at the bycatch and sustainability of some fisheries, but don't take the news article out of context.

"WWF says that 500 tonnes of shark product was exported from Australia" - How much of that was shark fin? If it is one per shark caught and the rest of the shark is used, then Australia may be reducing the demand for shark fins caught by people who throw the rest of the shark back.

[Newbie_spearo]

In the article it doesn't, I was reffering to the images in sharkwater. Yeh I realise Aus prob aren't wasting as much as the rest of the world, but a ban on shark fin would mean sharks would be a whole lot better off in general.