US to end controversial shark ‘finning’!

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* 10:55 22 April 2008 * NewScientist.com news service * Susan BrownThe oceans just got a little safer for sharks. Fishermen must bring theirshark catches to shore with fins still attached, the US fisheries servicehas decided.The new rule, put forward last week, aims to prevent fishermen from slicingfins off vulnerable species and discarding the rest at sea."Finning", as the practice is known, is illegal in the US and elsewhere, butthe ban is difficult to enforce. Right now, fishermen may land piles of finsseparate from shark bodies, so long as the fins weigh less than 5% of thetotal catch.Shark meat fetches much lower prices than do fins, which are the mainingredient in the prized Asian soup. The

discrepancy encourages cheating asit is hard to identify the species of a shark based solely on its fins."They keep the fins of every shark they catch and then fill the hold withbodies of smaller sharks," says marine ecologist Stuart Sandin of theScripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "In essence,they are double dipping."The new rule, which will come into effect in time for the shark-fishingseason in June, is part of a plan to help badly overfished populations ofsharks recover. It will only protect sharks until 2012, when fisheriesmanagers will reevaluate the stocks.A measure to permanently require that sharks be landed intact was introducedto the US Congress last week. The European Union is also considering similarmeasures to enforce the ban on finning.http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn13749-us-to-end-controversial-shark-finning.html http://pets.Fortheanimals7/join