Unprecedented
You might consider shark fin soup to be a delicacy. But Americans who consume shark fin soup might very well be unknowingly eating an endangered species. According to an unprecedented scientific analysis by Stony Brook University, the Field Museum in Chicago and with support from the Pew Environment Group, the shark fin soup served in 14 U.S. cities contains at-risk species, including scalloped hammerhead, which is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a globally endangered species. “The DNA testing again confirms that a wide variety of sharks are being killed for the fin trade, including seriously threatened species,” said Dr. Demian Chapman, who co-led the DNA testing at the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University in New York. “U.S. consumers of shark fin soup cannot be certain of what’s in their soup. They could be eating a species that is in serious trouble.”
Global decline
In addition to the scalloped hammerhead, the team found that the 32 samples identified as sharks included smooth hammerheads, school sharks, and spiny dogfish, which are all listed as Vulnerable to extinction. Also other Near Threatened species such as bull and copper sharks were found in the soup samples. The most abundant shark in the tested soup samples was the blue shark (see photograph), a species that is not yet at risk. Blue shark numbers have plummeted on an almost global scale the past couple of years though, so the future probably spells doom for blue sharks too if the unregulated trade in shark fins is allowed to continue. “This is further proof that shark fin soup in the United States — not just in Asia — is contributing to the global decline of sharks,” said Liz Karan, manager of global shark conservation at the Pew Environment Group. “Sharks must be protected from overfishing and any international trade in these vulnerable and endangered animals must be tightly regulated.”
Source: Pew Environment Group
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