Environment     

Outrage over shark fin rooftop in Hong Kong

China Daily, January 4, 2013

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  About 73 million sharks are killed every year, with Hong Kong importing about 9,070 metric tons annually for the past decade, according to environmental group WWF.

  Shark fins drying in the sun cover the roof of a building in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Environmentalists have raised concerns that the overharvesting of fins is causing an environmental calamity. Hong Kong is one of the world's biggest markets for shark fins, which are used to make expensive soup at Chinese banquets. [Photo/Agencies]

  The number of threatened shark species has soared from 15 in 1996 to more than 180 in 2010.

  It was not immediately clear who owns the thousands of unprocessed fins on the rooftop, which was unguarded when visited by an journalist on Thursday.

  A spokeswoman from the government's conservation department told AFP that authorities could not act because the fins were on private property.

  Silvy Pun, the Hong Kong director for US-based Shark Savers, criticized the Hong Kong government for not acting to protect the dwindling shark population, after neighboring Taiwan banned shark finning this year while the Chinese mainland plans to stop serving the soup at official banquets.

  "The government must do something. The government is being very laid back and trying to avoid confrontation with the shark fin traders," Pun said.

  Trade in shark fins is not regulated in Hong Kong except for three species - basking shark, great white shark and whale shark - where the trade is restricted under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, to which Hong Kong is a signatory.

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