GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador (Oct. 4, 2003) -- For the second time in less than a month, Galapagos National Park officials seized shark fins taken illegally in the Galapagos Islands. Park authorities seized 211 shark fins, confiscated an Ecuadorian cargo ship and detained its crew. Early last month, park officials seized 815 fins and busted local fishermen and a Korean dealer. Shark species in the Galapagos and throughout the world are threatened and endangered primarily because of shark finning, a brutal practice in which fishermen hook sharks, cut off their fins and throw them back into the ocean to bleed to death. Conservationists say the practice is cruel because sharks are left to suffer an agonizingly slow death, and it is also wasteful because up to 99 per cent of the shark is not used. Most shark fins are dried and sold to Asian dealers in Hong Kong and Singapore where shark fin soup is considered a gourmet delicacy, a status symbol and an aphrodisiac by millions of consumers enriched by Asia's massive economic growth. | | Sharks grow slowly, mature slowly and have an extremely low reproduction rate, which makes them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORK |
