Swimming with the sharks

by Gareth Hughes

Sharks are amazing creatures and fearsome predators, but they don’t stand a chance against our industrial fishing fleets and growing demand for shark fin soup.

Shark finning − the practice of killing a shark, cutting off its fins, and discarding the carcass back to sea − is still legal in New Zealand, and like killing an elephant just for its tusks, is grossly wasteful. It is estimated that 73 million sharks are killed every year for their fins to fuel the booming, now $1 billion, global shark fin trade.

I went diving with the sharks at Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium with Sea Week National Coordinator Mels Barton to highlight the plight of the sharks, and to call on the Government to review our national shark plan rules around shark finning.

Gareth and Mels Barton

It was an amazing experience and I felt quite safe, but my heart did beat a little faster when some of the bigger sharks started swimming straight towards me in the tank (especially after I had been warned they sometimes get a little territorial and ram divers heads!).

I’m supporting the call by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and United Nations General Assembly for New Zealand to introduce a ‘fins naturally attached’ approach to shark regulation, which would require vessels to keep the whole shark, rather than discarding carcasses at sea. This approach is realistic, simple to implement, and cheap and easy to enforce.

Shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy, has been a major driver in the global decline of shark populations, which has seen some large species declining up to 90%.

With non-shark fin alternatives available would you still eat ‘the real stuff’ in a restaurant?