TORONTO CITY council has voted overwhelmingly to ban the sale or possession of shark fins, in the teeth of strong opposition from the city’s Chinese community for whom they are a traditional delicacy.
The decision, by 38 votes to four, means that nobody in Canada’s largest city will be able to enjoy expensive shark fin soup in Chinese restaurants, and it could be extended if other municipalities, such as Vancouver, follow suit.
Some 200 people – many of them Chinese – demonstrated outside Toronto City Hall against the proposal. One of the councillors who opposed the ban said: “I’m a big supporter of the Chinese community. If that’s part of their culture, then we shouldn’t interfere in that.” But WildAid Canada, which campaigned for the ban, said it was a huge victory in the fight against the illegal trade, which it says is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Fins from up to 73 million sharks are used every year to make shark fin soup and related food products. “Shark finning is a cruel and wasteful practice – captured at sea and hauled on deck, the sharks are often still alive while their fins are sliced off,” said WildAid executive director Rob Sinclair.
“Because shark meat is not considered as valuable as the fins, the maimed animals are tossed overboard to drown or bleed to death,” he added. “But while the practice is illegal, current laws banning shark finning do not address the issue of the shark fin trade.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that one third of shark species are threatened with extinction, with certain species declining by up to 90 per cent. WildAid aims to end the trade in shark fins by campaigning for more bans.
Recently, California governor Jerry Brown signed a new law banning the possession, sale and distribution of shark fins. “The practice of cutting the fins off of living sharks and dumping them back in the ocean is not only cruel, but it harms the health of our oceans,” he said. Hawaii, Oregon and Washington state have similar bans.
