Shark finning is widespread, and largely unmanaged and unmonitored. Shark finning has increased over the past decade largely due to the increasing demand for shark fins for Chinese shark fin soup and traditional cures, improved fishing technology, and improved market economics. Shark specialists estimate that anywhere between 38 million-100 million sharks are killed for their fins, annually. Shark fins are a billion dollar industry.
According to wildlife conservation much of the sharks' fin trade uses fins cut from living sharks, called finning. Because shark meat is worth much less, the now finless and often still-living sharks are thrown back into the sea to make room for more of the valuable fins. In the ocean, the sharks either die from suffocation or are eaten because they are unable to move normally.
Numbers of some shark species have dropped as much as 80% over the last 50 years.
