Author: Kristin Stone

Humane Society International has been working to increase global awareness about the threats these vulnerable predators face, as well as the crucial role they play in maintaining healthy oceans. Much progress has been made, but the situation for most sharks remains dire. View a map of current shark finning regulations and shark fin product bans worldwide.

Advances and disappointments in international shark conservation, 2005-present:

2013: The government of Hong Kong announced that it would not serve shark fins at any official functions and instructed governmental employees not to consume shark fins at external functions. 

2013: Legislation to end the sale, trade and possession of shark fins in California went into effect.

2013: Delaware shark fin ban signed into law.

2013: Maryland became the first state on the U.S. east coast to ban shark fin trade.

2013: The oceanic whitetip shark, the porbeagle shark, three species of hammerhead sharks, and two species of manta rays, great and reef, were listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which will provide regulation on international trade in these species and offer protection from overexploitation.

2013: A federal court in San Francisco issued a ruling upholding landmark legislation prohibiting the sale of shark fins in California.

2013: The Illinois law banning the sale of shark fins went into effect.

2012: Union of British Columbian Municipalities passed a near-unanimous resolution calling on the provincial government to ban the sale, trade, and distribution of shark fins, and for the federal government to ban the import of shark fins into Canada.

2012: The European Union resolved to strengthen shark finning laws, making it more difficult than ever for fishermen in EU waters to cut the fins from living sharks.

2012: The government of French Polynesia banned fishing for all shark species in the country’s entire exclusive economic zone, effectively establishing the world’s largest shark sanctuary.

2012: The Cook Islands banned the possession, sale, and trade of shark products and put an end to commercial shark fishing in its entire exclusive economic zone.

2012: The City of Duncan in British Columbia, Canada unanimously voted to ban the sale of shark fins, effective January 1, 2013.

2012: New Westminster City Council unanimously passed a ban on the trade, sale and distribution of shark fins.

2012: Catch and possession of sharks within three nautical miles of the shoreline of American Samoa was banned in November, 2012.

2012: The City of Langley, British Columbia banned the sale, purchase and consumption of shark fins, including shark fin derivatives.

2012: The township of Langley, British Columbia banned the possession, trade, sale and distribution of shark fin products.

2012: The cities of Abbotsford and Maple Ridge in British Columbia banned the possession, trade, sale and distribution of shark fin products.

2012: The city of North Vancouver, British Columbia banned the possession, trade, sale and distribution of shark fin products in the municipality.

2012: China’s state council announced that the Chinese government would no longer serve shark fin dishes at official functions.

2012: Hong-Kong based Cathay Pacific Airways announced that it would halt shipments of shark fin and shark fin products.

2012: Illinois became the fifth state in the U.S. to ban the possession, sale, trade and distribution of shark fins.

2012: The city of North Vancouver, British Columbia, passed a motion to draft a bylaw to ban the possession, trade, sale, and distribution of shark fin products in the municipality.

2012: The New York bill (S. 6431/A. 7707) to ban the possession, sale, trade and distribution of shark fins that was introduced in April passed the Assembly but was not picked up by the Senate before the session adjourned.

2012: In Canada, the cities of Newmarket, Ontario and Port Moody, British Columbia prohibited the sale, trade, consumption and possession of shark fin and shark fin products.

2012: Illinois State HB4119 to prohibit the passed the state Senate and House the sale, trade, consumption and possession of shark fin.

2012: Bills to prohibit the sale, consumption and possession of shark fin were introduced in the states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

2011: Shark fishing and possession and sale of sharks and fins were banned in Sabah, Malaysia.

2011: Federal legislation that would prohibit the importation of shark fins into Canada was introduced.

2011: In Canada, the cities of Brantford, Oakville, Mississauga, London and Pickering passed bans on the sale of shark fins.

2011: The governor of California signed a bill banning shark fin trade (AB376) into law.

2011: The Republic of Marshall Islands banned commercial shark fishing, sale of shark products, and retention of sharks caught incidentally.

2011: Taiwan announced that it would implement a fins-naturally-attached policy to reduce shark catches beginning in 2012.

2011: The Chilean National Congress passed legislation prohibiting shark finning, requiring that shark catches that land ashore must have their fins naturally attached to the bodies.

2011: Washington’s governor signed SB 5688, which prohibits people from selling, trading or distributing shark fins or derivative products including cartilage supplements.

2011: Guam’s governor signed into law Bill 44-31, which prohibits any person from possessing, selling or distributing shark fins in Guam.

2011: Oregon passed HB 2838, which prohibits people from possessing, selling, trading or distributing shark fins.

2011: The Bahamas government declared its national waters a shark sanctuary, banning all commercial shark fishing.

2011: Honduras announced a permanent shark sanctuary in its national waters.

2011: The government of Costa Rica held a shark finning side event at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Committee on Fisheries meeting to present the video from the September 2010 workshop and hold a panel discussion on the fins-attached method of banning shark finning.

2011: The U.S. Shark Conservation Act, which strengthens the U.S. finning ban by closing loopholes in the 2000 ban, was passed.

2010: A law prohibiting the sale, possession and distribution of shark fins and shark fin products was enacted in Hawaii.

2010: An EU Written Declaration on shark finning received the highest number of signatures out of all Written Declarations in 2010. Its adoption was followed by a European Parliamentary Resolution urging the Commission to produce a legislative proposal supporting a ban on removal of shark fins at sea.

2010: Proposals were put forward at both the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) to strengthen shark finning bans by requiring that sharks be landed whole, but both failed to gain consensus and were not adopted.

2010: ICCAT prohibited retention of oceanic whitetip sharks, limited catches of most species of hammerhead shark to local catches by coastal communities for domestic consumption, and required that catch data be provided by any country that catches shortfin mako sharks.

2010: Costa Rica hosted a regional capacity building workshop on landing sharks with fins naturally attached to help end shark finning.

2010: The United Nations (UN) Fish Stocks Agreement urged that countries strengthen finning bans and consider requiring that sharks be landed whole, with fins attached.

2010: A record number of eight species of shark, including oceanic whitetip, porbeagle, hammerhead and spiny dogfish, were proposed for but failed to gain protection from international trade at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

2010: The Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) established a non-binding global instrument on shark conservation.

2009: At the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Committee on Fisheries (COFI) meeting, Costa Rica—with support from other Latin American countries—called for a workshop to facilitate the adoption of the “fins-attached” method for banning shark finning.

2009: ICCAT became the first international fisheries management body to adopt shark fishing regulations by banning the retention of bigeye thresher sharks; however, a proposal to land sharks with fins attached was rejected.

2008: CMS added shortfin and longfin mako sharks, porbeagle sharks and the northern hemisphere population of spiny dogfish sharks to its Appendix II list of protected species.

2007: The UN General Assembly recommended that countries strengthen shark finning bans and consider requiring that sharks be landed with fins attached, the most effective method of ending the cruel practice of shark finning (which also helps to reduce the amount of sharks killed by commercial fisheries).

How you can help 

While we are lobbying for stronger international regulations, you can do your part as a citizen and a consumer:

• Never consume shark fin soup. Sign our No Shark Fin pledge.
• Avoid all shark meat, including fish and chips, which is often made with dogfish shark meat.
• Avoid products made with ingredients that come from sharks such as shark liver oil and shark cartilage.
• Avoid consuming fish such as tuna and swordfish, which are caught using methods that have high bycatch of sharks and other species.
• Urge your government to adopt and promote domestic and international measures to protect sharks, especially “fins-attached” shark finning bans.
• See a list of more you can do.

For reasons still unknown, schools of adult yellowfin tuna in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean frequently swim beneath large groups of dolphins. Since 1959, tuna fishermen have used this association to target tuna schools.

Collateral damage

Once the crew of a large fishing vessel locates a group of dolphins, they lower small speedboats equipped with purse seine nets (nets that close at the top) and chase the dolphins until they are exhausted and can be herded into a tight bunch. The chase may last anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours before the fishermen finally drop a purse seine net into the water, encircling the dolphins and the tuna school beneath.

The dolphins are traumatized by the chase and engine noise, and disoriented by the net. Terrified into shock, many are unable or unwilling to escape. Historically, these dolphins were hauled aboard and later discarded, dead or dying, back into the water. Before the enactment of the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, as many as half a million dolphins died every year in this carnage.

“Dolphin-Safe”—in some cases

By the late 1980s, U.S. consumer pressure led to the development of the “Dolphin Safe” label, which was adopted by the major U.S. tuna companies in 1990. The “Dolphin Safe” label promised consumers that the tuna had been caught without deliberately setting nets on dolphins. By June 1, 1994, the entire U.S. tuna fleet was dolphin-safe. The MMPA banned the importation into the U.S. of tuna caught by countries that didn’t adhere to “Dolphin Safe” practices.

Despite this, dolphins continue to die needlessly in the ETP because countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia are still setting nets on dolphins. Every year, an estimated 2,500 to 5,000 dolphins die in the ETP tuna fishery, while as many as 3 million are chased, traumatized and injured by encirclement. These dolphins may die later or suffer serious physiological damage, leading to reduced reproductive rates or shortened life spans.

A timeline of events

In the mid-1990s, Mexico threatened action against the United States on the grounds that U.S. dolphin protection laws violated the free trade requirements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The GATT panel found the U.S. embargo on tuna and tuna products inconsistent with GATT provisions; however, the panel upheld the U.S. Dolphin Safe label. The panel report was not adopted, but the issue remained, and even led to another GATT dispute in 1993 by the European Communities (EC).   

Thereafter, the United States repealed the embargo on tuna products, and in 1997, passed the misleadingly-named International Dolphin Conservation Act. This law allowed then-Commerce Secretary William Daley to redefine the MMPA and dolphin-safe fishing practices, making it legal to intentionally chase, encircle, and traumatize dolphins in purse seine nets and still label tuna caught in this manner “Dolphin Safe”—as long as an on-board observer did not report seeing any dolphins die or sustain serious injury.

The Humane Society of the United States deplored Daley’s decision to weaken the standards for the label. In August 1999, The HSUS, in partnership with Earth Island Institute and others, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to overturn the weakening of the “Dolphin Safe” label. In April of 2000, Judge Thelton Henderson ruled in our favor and refused to allow the government to weaken the label. Several months later, the government challenged that ruling in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But in July 2001, in a unanimous decision, the three-judge panel once again ruled in our favor. The court went on to state that Secretary Daley’s move to weaken “Dolphin Safe” standards was “contrary to law and an abuse of his discretion.”

The battle did not end there. There was still another opportunity for the government to weaken the label. The 1997 legislation required additional studies, which were eventually released in a report to Congress in August 2002. The Commerce Secretary was to review these studies and then decide whether to weaken the label. The studies did indeed demonstrate a continued decline in dolphin populations in the ETP; however, despite this evidence given by the government’s own scientists, the Commerce Department announced a “no significant adverse impact” finding on December 31, 2002. This would have automatically weakened the “Dolphin Safe” label once more. The HSUS, Earth Island Institute and other groups challenged this decision, again charging that the evidence clearly refuted the finding.

In August 2004, U.S. Federal Judge Thelton Henderson ruled in our favor and upheld the Dolphin Safe standards, stating that the U.S. government ignored the advice of its own scientists when it attempted to weaken the label. This case went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and again the Department of Commerce’s attempt to weaken the definition of the well-known and trusted “Dolphin Safe” label was rejected in April 2007. The government allowed its time to appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court to run out; therefore, “Dolphin Safe” standards continue to prohibit chasing or netting dolphins.

In October of 2008, following the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, and with no indication that the U.S. Congress would change its law, Mexico again threatened action against the U.S. at the WTO.

The U.S. and Mexico had several rounds of consultations, but failed to reach a settlement. Consequently, Mexico requested a dispute panel in March 2009 claiming that our dolphin-safe label was an unfair trade barrier. We submitted an Amicus brief in support of the lawfulness of the U.S. label, but on September 15, 2011, a WTO dispute panel released its ruling on the matter, finding that the dolphin-safe label did not comply with WTO rules. The United States appealed the adverse ruling, but again the panel ruled that our law violated WTO rules stating that it unfairly discriminated against Mexico.

The United States was required to comply with the WTO ruling. It could have dismantled U.S. law or expanded these standards to all oceans with tuna fisheries and to all countries seeking to import its tuna. Then, on April 5, 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a proposed rule that was published in the Federal Register that enhances documentary requirements by calling for certification that no dolphins were killed or seriously injured in the nets or other gear deployments in which the tuna were caught, regardless of the fishery where the tuna was caught or the gear type. This would apply to any “dolphin-safe” claim on tuna products imported or sold in the United States.

Today, this requirement applies only to tuna caught by large purse seine vessels in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. The rule as proposed also imposes new requirements for canners and processors by adding additional reporting elements on the monthly receipts report. The requirements under existing U.S. law and regulations for certifications that purse seine nets were not intentionally deployed on or used to encircle dolphins would remain unchanged. “The U.S. administration made a bold and important decision that instills greater consumer confidence and protections for dolphins globally,” commented HSI Vice President Kitty Block.

Read the amicus brief by HSI on the U.S. submission to the World Trade Organization on Measures Concerning the Importation, Marketing and Sale of Tuna and Tuna Products [PDF].

Nuggehalli Jayasimha is the Managing Director of Humane Society International / India based in the city of Hyderabad. Jayasimha manages HSI’s programs in India related to farm animal welfare, wildlife, and animals used in research, as well as several country-wide campaigns.

Jayasimha has previously served as a Member-at-Large of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) and the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision on Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) both of which are part of India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change. He has also served as a member of the legal, editorial and drafting committee of the AWBI to suggest amendments to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960.

In addition to serving on several committees for various government ministries, Jayasimha has been an integral part of monitoring committee set up by the High Court of Bombay to control illegal trade in wildlife in India. In addition to this he has closely worked with various ministries of the Government of India where his roles have entailed drafting new codes and reviewing the existing codes to incorporate animal welfare measures for food and agricultural standards; ensuring animals were treated humanely on sets and depicted in the correct manner; and successfully drafting standards for animal transport, zoos and aquaria, and circuses.

Jayasimha received a law degree from Bangalore University and is enrolled as an advocate in the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa.