PATTAYA, Thailand — Saved from the soup bowl at a Thai restaurant, the baby shark wriggled out of the bag and into the open sea — a rare survivor of a trade that kills millions of the predators each year.
On average an estimated 22,000 tonnes of sharks are caught annually off Thailand for their fins — a delicacy in Chinese cuisine once enjoyed only by the rich, but now increasingly popular with the wealthier middle class.
Thanks to a group of environmental activists calling themselves the Dive Tribe, dozens of sharks were returned to the wild in the Gulf of Thailand recently, bought from animal markets or restaurants.
Among them were several young bamboo and black tip reef sharks which narrowly avoided ending up as shark fin soup — prized in particular by the Chinese who believe it boosts sexual potency.
Gwyn Mills, founder of Dive Tribe, laments the fact that the plight of sharks is largely overlooked compared to animals such as elephants and tigers.
He fears it may be only five or 10 years before the damage is irreversible.
Read the complete story from The Associated Free Press