Campaigners have welcomed moves by the European Parliament to end “cruel and wasteful” shark finning by voting to close loopholes in the ban on the practice.
Shark finning, which is driven by demand for shark fin soup in Asia, involves cutting the fin from the shark, with the rest of the fish often discarded back into the sea still alive.
The EU has previously banned shark finning, but loopholes allowed permits for fishermen to cut fins from sharks on board ships and land them separately, according to a ratio which enabled them to land more fins than they had bodies for. This meant undetected finning could be taking place and made it hard to monitor if protected species were being caught as only their fins might be landed….
Enniscorthy Guardian. 22/11/2012. Read the article ‘Shark finning loopholes closed’
