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U.S. legislative
panels OK ban
on shark finning

Tuna treaty near

Associated Press

The lucrative practice of cutting valuable fins off otherwise commercially worthless sharks by the Hawaii-based longline fishing fleet may soon be curbed.

House and Senate conferees today approved an administration-backed bill prohibiting the landing of shark fins in Hawaii unless they are still attached to the shark.

"It ensures that this fishery is preserved for future generations," said Rep. Brian Schatz, D-Makiki-Tantalus, the bill's primary proponent. "The intent is to allow people to continue to eat sharks and shark fins, but to make sure the biological resource is protected."

In effect, the bill would ban finning because the commercial fleet does not have the storage space to bring the entire shark to shore.

The landing of amputated fins already has been banned in 17 states along the Atlantic, Gulf and California coasts.

Honolulu has become a key transshipment point for dried shark fins, which reportedly are worth up to $40 a pound in Asian markets. Finning is a multimillion-dollar sideline for crews of the longliners.

The shark finning industry in the Pacific has exploded in the past decade.

In 1991 fewer than 3,000 sharks were caught, but by 1999, 100,000 were caught. Most are open-ocean blue sharks incidentally caught by fishing boats while pursuing other species.

The sharks are not considered endangered.

Over 98 percent of those sharks are finned, with their carcasses thrown overboard, said Rep. Roy Takumi, D-Pearl City-Waipahu, chairman of the Ocean Recreation and Marine Resources Committee.

Last year, 34 tons of fins were landed in Hawaii, representing 60 percent of the U.S. Pacific shark landings, he said.

Environmentalists say finning sharks and then dumping them back into the sea is cruel and wasteful and could be depleting the shark populations vital to maintaining a balanced ocean ecology.

The federal Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council opposed the bill and recently rejected a proposed ban on finning, saying there is no evidence that blue shark populations in the open ocean are being diminished.