shark finning

The release of the first ever IUCN Red List of Threatened Species assessment of northeast Atlantic sharks, rays and chimaeras reveals that 26 percent are threatened with extinction and another 20 percent are in the Near Threatened category.

And the figures may be an underestimate as there is insufficient data to assess more than a quarter of species.

It's no surprise that the report attributes the sharks' demise to -- guess what? -- overfishing, bycatch, and shark finning, all of which Oceana works to stop.

Just in time for Discovery Channel's Shark Week, July 27 to Aug. 2, today we released a report revealing that as shark populations decline, the oceans suffer unpredictable and devastating consequences.

Tuesday I watched as the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Shark Conservation Act of 2008. This legislation will require all sharks to be landed with their fins still naturally attached in all U.S. waters. Current laws only require fins and carcasses to be landed in a specific ratio, which does not allow for proper enforcement or data collection.

It's Friday, the weather's beautiful here at Oceana HQ in DC, and we have two positive developments in ocean news to report:

1.) The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced new rules that will require federal shark fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico to land sharks with their fins still naturally attached.

The most popular story right now on current.com is about shark finning, a horrific practice that most people know nothing about, and that Oceana is campaigning to stop. Millions of sharks are indiscriminately killed every year to satiate a growing hunger for shark fin soup, a delicacy in some countries.

Finning isn't the only challenge sharks are up against. Sharks are also caught for meat and as bycatch. Click here to access an exclusive Oceana slideshow of images of shark fishing around the world, including finning.

Every year, fishermen globally pull tens of millions of sharks on deck and crudely slice off their fins. The fishermen then throw the sharks overboard, now finless, and they sink to the ocean floor where they drown or bleed to death. Shark finning is as brutal as it is wasteful – which prompted the U.S. government to enact the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000, making the practice illegal. Or, at least, that was the intention.

Take Action: Watch our Shark Finning Video and Tell Your Representative to Pass a TRUE Shark Finning Ban

The brutal practice of shark finning got a boost this week as the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a Hong Kong company should not have lost the proceeds from 64,695 pounds of shark fins seized by the Coast Guard in 2002.

Let me repeat that figure: 64,695 pounds of shark fins alone were on that boat. That's the weight of more than eleven Cadillac Escalades. Or eight female African elephants. Or 470 Oxford dictionaries.

Without knowing what species of sharks were on the boat, the King Diamond II, or the size of the sharks, it's hard to know how many sharks were killed. Consider this, however: A shark fin comprises just one to five percent of the animal's body weight. After the fins are sliced off, the sharks are thrown overboard to die.

Shark finning is illegal in the United States, but a loophole allowed the King Diamond II to carry shark fins it had collected from other fishing ships. A loophole big enough to drive a bevy of Escalades through? Time to close that one up.

[Image courtesy Sharkwater]