Investigation of the Threatened and Vulnerable Shark in the Shark Fin Trade

Running head: SHARK FIN TRADE
Investigation of the threatened and vulnerable shark being used in the shark fin trade
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1SHARK FIN TRADE
Abstract
The number of shark species is in declination due to various human activities like overfishing of
shark as a food source, pollution in their natural habitat, entanglement in the fishing net and the
effect of global climate change. Human activity like fishing sharks for the food industry’s
delicacy like shark fins soup is primarily responsible for the declination of the number of shark
species in the natural environment. Fisherman who are fishing shark for business are not
thoughtful enough to distinguish between the threatened and vulnerable sharks from non-
threatened and non- vulnerable shark. On top of that, shark trading business is still legal in
various countries. However preventive measure has been taken against this practice and trading
of shark fin of threatened species has been banned by the CITES in 2013. Australian government
has also taken some initiative against the illegal practice of hunting threatened shark. The aim of
this investigation is to study whether threatened or vulnerable species of shark are being sold in
Australia's shark fin trade. Shark samples were collected from local market for analysis and
genetic analysis were conducted for the determination of species of the collected samples.
BLAST database was used for the identification of the nucleotide sequence obtained from the
experiment. The species Prionace glauca was identified from the samples collected in Australia's
shark fin market with a 100 per cent ‘Max Indent’ in BLAST search. This species has ‘Near
Threatened' status as per the IUCN database. This evidence suggests that there still illegal
capturing of threatened sharks are conducting in the Australian coastal border. The laws and
regulation are in place to prevent this gruesome practice but as evident by this study hunting of
threatened species of shark are still being conducted and strict measures need to be taken for the
implementation of this laws and regulation.

2SHARK FIN TRADE
Introduction
One of the oldest existing animals that still roam the earth is sharks. However, general fear
regarding shark and misconceptions regarding them have made the sharks a threatened and near
extinct species (Shimada & Ward 2016). As like any other natural resources, human activity
plays a vital role in declination of the number of shark species. There is various human activity
because of which the number of shark population is declining sharply all over the world and they
are overfishing of shark as a food source, pollution in their natural habitat, entanglement in the
fishing net and the effect of global climate change (Dulvy et al. 2014). Amongst the above
activity, the most detrimental effect that has on the diminishing shark population is the
harvesting of sharks and trades them in the lucrative shark fin trade business (Carr et al. 2013). It
has been reported that annually, around 273 million sharks are being slaughtered for this shark
fin trade (Worm et al. 2013).
The main reason for the increased boom for the shark fin trade is that the belief in some cultures
where it is believed that shark fin has spiritual and therapeutic properties whereas rest of the
shark such as meat is not (Halim et al 2017). As a result sharks fin are expensive while shark
meat is not. Due to the high market value of shark fin, it has become one of the well-practiced
approaches for many of the fishing vessels for profit. It has also been observed that some fishing
vessels cut off the fins of the shark after their entrapment and the body has been discarded back
into the ocean and sometimes alive. This gruesome practice generally employed due to the lower
value of shark meat and the storage space of the fishing vessels can be utilized solely for shark
fins (Julio 2014). This method also enables the fishermen to circumvent the rule not to harvest
threatened and vulnerable shark species as shark fins look similar in many species and it is near
impossible to identify shark species from their fins alone. As a result, numbers of the threatened

3SHARK FIN TRADE
population of sharks are decreasing rapidly due to the unethical, gruesome and greedy practice of
the shark fin trade.
In the year 2013, the trading of shark fin of threatened species has been banned by the CITES or
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Vincent et
al. 2014). Many governments and international organizations have also followed suit in that
matter. In many countries, removal of shark fin before the arrival of the fishing vessel in the
shore has been made illegal in an effort to whether threatened species of shark are being used or
not. In case of Australia, killing, capture, and trading of threatened species of shark have been
banned by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, although the
trading and capturing of unthreatened species remains without restriction at a federal level of the
government (Adams & Moon 2013). As a result, loopholes in the law are being exploited by the
greedy businessman and subsequently threatened species are killed and captured alongside the
non- threatened species of sharks. This protection act was created a large underground black
market for the shark fins.
The best chances to ensure the survival of the threatened shark species are to raise awareness
about this gruesome and unethical practice and to change public attitude towards the shark fin
trade. Therefore, in this investigation, different shark fins were bought from the Australian
market in order to identify the species of the shark and to evaluate whether they belong to the
threatened species or not. In order to achieve that, DNA analysis will be conducted as
morphological identification is difficult from the fins only.
Materials and Methods
Sample collection