The facts

What is shark fin soup? 
Shark fin soup is made of shark fins and other ingredients such as chicken broth and mushrooms.  It is usually served at special occasions such as weddings and banquets.  Shark fin has no taste but provides a gelatine-like texture to the soup.

Image courtesy of Shark Angels

What is shark finning?

Shark finning involves catching a shark, removing its fins while it is still alive, and throwing its body back into the sea while it is still alive.  Unable to swim, the shark sinks to the bottom where it suffocates, bleeds to death, or is eaten alive by other fish. 

Shark finning takes place at sea so only the fins are transported back to land.  Shark meat is considered low value and therefore not worth the cost of transporting back to market.

Overfishing has led to the depletion of sharks by as much as 90%.

WARNING: This video contains graphic content, viewer discretion is advised.

Sharks have been top predators for 400 million years, pre-dating the dinosaurs by 150 million years. They breed like elephants and people: they have few offspring and can take decades to reach sexual maturity.  Thus, sharks are very vulnerable to overfishing. 

Sharks are facing extinction within our lifetime unless critical steps towards conservation are taken. 

Why are sharks important?

As predators at the top of marine ecosystems, sharks control the populations of marine life below them on the food chain, right down to tiny plants called phytoplankton, which convert carbon dioxide into more than half of the oxygen we breathe.  

If sharks are destroyed, entire marine ecosystems will become imbalanced and the oxygen from the oceans that we depend on for survival will be catastrophically affected.

Image courtesy of Rob Stewart, Sharkwater

For more information, visit:

http://www.sharkwater.com/
http://www.sharktruth.com/
http://www.sharksavers.org/
http://www.wildaid.org/
http://www.sharkangels.com/

Contact Councillor David Pickles at dpickles@cityofpickering.com for more information.