Sharks And Rays - Urgent Measures Needed To Combat Their Over-Exploitation

A traffic study released recently has identified the world’s top 20 shark and ray catchers and traders, who collectively account for some 80 per cent of global reported catch averaged by year between 2007 and 2017.

- Dr Richard Thomas

A traffic study released in September 2019 has identified that almost 600,000 metric tonnes of sharks and rays caught each year by the world’s top 20 catchers. Commercial and artisanal vessels from Indonesia, Spain, India, Mexico, and the United States topped the list of catchers during the studied time period, with a combined total of 333,952 metric tonnes (mt) caught on average each year.

Shark fin consumption in East Asia, traditionally eaten as a soup during celebratory occasions, is a key driver of trade. An average of 16,177 mt per year of shark fin products (with an average value of $294 million per year) were reported as imported worldwide during 2000–2016.

The world’s four largest importers of shark fin accounted for 90 per cent of average annual global imports of fins during the same period. Hong Kong SAR was the largest, importing an average of 9069 mt of shark fins a year over this period, followed by Malaysia (average 2556 mt/year), mainland China (1868 Mt/ year), and Singapore (1587 mt/year). The main importers of shark and ray meat were Brazil, Spain, Uruguay, and Italy, which accounted for 57 per cent of the average global imports of shark meat over the past decade.