A spate of recent criminal indictments highlights how U.S. companies, taking advantage of a patchwork of federal and state laws, are supplying a market for fins that activists say is as reprehensible as the now-illegal trade in elephant ivory once was.
— making it illegal to import or export even foreign-caught fins. Every year, American wildlife inspectors seize thousands of shark fins while in transit to Asia for failing to declare the shipments.This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.While not all sharks are killed just for their fins, none of the other shark parts harvested in the U.S.
Among those opposing the proposed ban is Elite, which has hired lobbyists to urge Congress to vote against the bill,It's not known where Elite obtained its fins. But in the criminal complaint, the company was also accused of sourcing lobster from Nicaragua and Belize that it falsely stated was caught in Florida.
She said the current laws aren't enough of a deterrent in an industry where bad actors drawn by the promise of huge profits are a recurrent problem. “This operation is about much more than disrupting the despicable practice of hacking the fins off sharks and leaving them to drown in the sea to create a bowl of soup," Bobby Christine, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, said at the time.
Demian Chapman, who heads shark research at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, said that the push to ban commercial fishing of sharks could backfire.
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