Perhaps it is the atavistic fear of being torn apart that prevents us from feeling genuine sorrow over the decline of sharks. And yet there is every reason to: these ancient creatures are the victims of a veritable extermination, with more than one hundred million sharks killed every year. If this trend is not reversed, many shark species will be condemned to extinction.

The absurdity of shark finning

The main cause threatening shark survival is the practice known as shark finning, which involves cutting off the dorsal fin of sharks for use as food. This technique, widespread above all in Asia, also entails enormous suffering for the animals: the shark's fin is severed as soon as it is caught, while it is still alive and conscious; then, since the rest of the flesh has no commercial value, the animal is thrown back into the sea in its death throes, left to a slow and painful end. All of this for a bowl of soup — a dish once renowned as an elite delicacy and, following the economic boom, now increasingly common among the middle class. The consumption of shark fin soup, prevalent mainly in China and Vietnam, directly contributes to the killing of almost half of all sharks.

Halting the clandestine market

Shark finning has now reached unsustainable levels and could cause the local or even global disappearance of many threatened species. This is what emerges from the study "Out of control means off the menu: The case for ceasing consumption of luxury products from highly vulnerable species when international trade cannot be adequately controlled; shark fin as a case study", published in the journal Marine Policy. The study's authors highlight the need to control the shark fin market by establishing and, above all, enforcing regulations.

In the sign of illegality

Only a small portion of this trade could be managed sustainably, the study warns. Much of the international trade is uncontrolled or currently uncontrollable, thereby fuelling poaching and smuggling and attracting criminal organisations. The researchers examined shark fins on sale in Hong Kong and found that one third of the fins belonged to species classified as threatened on the IUCN Red List.

Fins off the menu

The study's authors propose removing shark fins from menus before causing irreparable collapses in shark populations — at least until the market is effectively regulated. However, researchers warn that even the legal market in wildlife parts poses threats, as it could undermine law enforcement efforts and help poachers launder their products. These crimes are also particularly difficult to eradicate, firstly because many governments lack the resources or the will to tackle illegal wildlife trade, and secondly because shark finning takes place on the high seas, where law enforcement oversight is more complex.

If sharks disappear, there will be trouble

The loss of sharks, besides depriving us of one of nature's most perfect creations, would create a dangerous imbalance in ecosystems: many shark species are apex predators, at the top of their respective food chains, and the disappearance of these predators would eliminate the natural control of their prey. "Removing a large predator causes a population explosion of other species," said Mark Meekan, marine biologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The damage inflicted on shark populations is compounded by their very low reproductive rate, which makes reversing the decline even more difficult. "Sharks don't have the biology to sustain high levels of fishing," Meekan explained. "They grow slowly and take a long time to mature."

The ecotourism value of sharks

The extermination of sharks will have serious consequences for the tourism industry as well as for oceanic trophic cascades. Thousands of people travel the world to observe these animals; according to Rachel Graham, founder of the conservation NGO MarAlliance, in 2013 almost 600,000 people went in search of sharks, generating more than 314 million dollars in revenue. "These figures are estimated to double over the next two decades," Graham said, "but they can only double if people have something to see." Governments of countries that depend on shark-related tourism revenue — in Australia the sector is estimated to generate 25.5 million dollars a year — should therefore invest in the conservation of these animals.

The future of the lords of the seas

In an attempt to prevent the disappearance of sharks, more than twenty nations, including the United States, have introduced bans or restrictions on shark finning. Furthermore, the consumption of shark fins in China, which surged between 1985 and the early 2000s, has according to WildAid declined by between 50 and 70 per cent since 2011, while shark fin imports fell by 81 per cent between 2011 and 2014. One of Hong Kong's leading restaurant chains, Maxim's, recently announced that it will no longer serve shark fin dishes from January 2020. The trend would therefore appear to be a positive one; and yet sharks continue to be killed at a rate that outpaces population growth, and fishing — both targeted and incidental — threatens almost 60 per cent of shark species. The future thus appears uncertain for these fascinating living creatures that have survived geological eras only to end up in a bowl of soup, because it is fashionable.