May 23, 2017 — The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act by U.S. Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton would extend a similar prohibition to all 50 states. In the upper house, Sen. Cory Booker’s Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act would prohibit the import, export, sale and trade of shark fins. The fishing industry is fighting the legislation, while animal rights advocates say the practice of finning, in which sharks are often maimed and left for dead, needs to stop.
Shark finning is illegal in domestic waters, but sharks are sometimes caught outside the United States and their fins imported. Advocates for the business argue that federal regulations already require all domestic fishing to be ecologically sustainable and that so few sharks fins traded in the United States — the Sustainable Shark Alliance says the country is responsible for about 3 percent of global shark fin trade — that the law is unnecessary.
“We believe in sustainable harvesting [of] every aquatic species and using the whole animal whenever possible,” says Robert Vannase, executive director of Saving Seafood, a public outreach group funded by the commercial fishing industry. “There is demand for shark fins, and we think it makes much more sense for that demand to be fulfilled by well-regulated, sustainable fishing rather than to have the U.S. check out of the market entirely.”
Industry advocates emphasize that when sharks are caught or imported, the whole fish is used. Banning shark fins would contradict this ethos of sustainable fishing, they say. “Why would you throw them in the trash,” says Greg DiDomenico, executive director of New Jersey’s Garden State Seafood Association and a vocal critic of the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act. He adds that such a ban could put some small-scale fishing concerns out of business. “This is a razor-thin margin business,” DiDomenico says. “It will remove another choice for American working fishermen.”
“It’s punishing people who are playing by the rules,” adds Shaun Gehan, an attorney for the pro-fishing-industry Sustainable Shark Alliance.