State Sen. Clayton Hee is rallying support for legislation he introduced that would make Hawaii a leader in the global fight to end shark finning.

The practice involves cutting the fins off sharks, then discarding the live animals in the ocean to drown.

The fins are the key ingredient in shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy.

Senate Bill 2169 would prohibit the possession and sale of shark fins. The state House and Senate have different versions of the bill and are fighting a Thursday deadline to agree to a single version.

“;We have a little bit—a couple of hang-ups,”; Hee said.

Lawmakers in the House have expressed concern for fishermen who might base their livelihoods on shark fishing.

  Shark finning: Cruel to some but cultural custom to others

 

The debate over shark finning in Hawaii is a controversial issue in the legislature.

 

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But Hee says shark fishing is insignificant when compared with the total fish take in Hawaii, and longline fishermen do not even fish for sharks.

House lawmakers also do not want to prohibit an established Chinese cultural tradition.

Former Hawaii first lady Vicky Cayetano, who joined Hee at a news conference yesterday, says eating shark fin soup is not a tradition of her Chinese culture.

“;This actually started way back in the Ming Dynasty when the Ming emperor wanted to have something so far removed, so difficult to catch that it was, quite frankly, a status symbol,”; she said.

Cayetano says shark fin soup continues to be simply a display of affluence, not a Chinese cultural tradition.

Hawaiian and other Pacific island cultures revere sharks as gods. And while Hawaiians do not prohibit killing sharks, “;it's not done every day,”; said Leighton Tseu, a member of the Royal Order of Kamehameha. “;It's done in sacredness.”;

And any object made using the remains of a shark, like a shark skin drum, is sacred, he said.

Current state law prohibits harvesting just the fins of sharks. Fishermen have to land the whole shark.

However, since the law took effect 10 years ago, “;as far as we're aware, there have been no arrests,”; said Robert Harris of the Sierra Club's Hawaii Chapter.

The shark fin industry kills 70 million to 89 million sharks per year and is projected to grow 7 percent annually, said Carl Meyer, assistant researcher at University of Hawaii's Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.

The majority of the fins wind up in Hong Kong and are then sold throughout China, he said.

Meyer said the sharks cannot reproduce fast enough to keep up with the shark fin industry because they take a long time to mature and produce few offspring.

House and Senate negotiators were scheduled to meet on the bill at 1 p.m. today in Conference Room 224 at the state Capitol.