"the United States accounts for less than 1 percent of the global shark fin trade"
Kind of a small portion.
"Shark fin bans gather steam in coastal states" by Juliet Eilperin | Washington Post, April 03, 2012
WASHINGTON - Efforts to restrict the shark fin trade - which is illegal in four states and has prompted legislation in at least six others - have stirred a noisy public debate about how best to protect a top ocean predator whose numbers are shrinking.
While the United States boasts some of the world’s toughest restrictions on shark fishing, requiring sharks to be brought in with their fins attached, proponents of the measure argue more needs to be done.
“This is everyone’s problem,’’ said Eric Luedtke, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, which is considering banning the sale and trade of shark fins, an Asian delicacy, much to the ire of some fishermen and restaurant owners.
“The reality is sharks don’t recognize state boundaries; they don’t recognize international boundaries,’’ he said. “What’s bad for oceans elsewhere is bad for oceans here.’’
But some Asian-American businesses that serve shark’s fin soup, as well as fishing operators who catch sharks legally, oppose the bans, which went into effect in Hawaii in 2010 and in California, Washington, and Oregon last year.
A group representing Asian American shark fin dealers, restaurateurs, and grocers will argue in the California Superior Court next month that the ban is unconstitutional because the federal government has ultimate authority over interstate commerce and the state is not compensating them for the economic loss.
The fin trade is the top intentional driver of shark deaths worldwide - killing between 26 million and 73 million sharks annually - because their cartilage is used to make noodles for a soup served at weddings and business meals.
Now THAT is a HOLOCAUST!
Millions of sharks also die each year when they are caught accidentally in gear targeting other species.
Those must be the MILES-LONG DRIFT NETS of INDUSTRIAL FISHING CONGLOMERATES that scoop up everything in their path!
In many ways, the push to target shark fins is modeled on the successful effort to outlaw raw ivory imports into the United States in 1989, a year ahead of a global ban on African elephant ivory. In both cases, said Beth Lowell, campaign director of the international group Oceana, “It’s the product which is driving the unsustainable trade of a species.’’
Although the United States was a major importer of elephant ivory, it accounts for less than 1 percent of the global shark fin trade....
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