Legislature considers banning shark fin trade
The Connecticut legislature is considering a proposed bill that would ban the possession, sale, trade or distribution of shark fins, following a trend set by neighboring states.
The proposed bill is now before the legislature’s Environment Committee and is expected to move up and go before the full General Assembly. If adopted, the prohibition would apply to both raw, dried, and processed shark fins and tails.
Several nearby states, including New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have banned the trade and practice of shark finning, and advocates say it’s important that Connecticut follow suit.
Shark finning is the fishing of sharks at sea, removing their fins and tail, then throwing the rest of the animal overboard back into the sea. Finless sharks are unable to swim and soon die by suffocation, blood loss or from predators.
While shark finning is illegal in U.S. waters, advocates say Connecticut should adopt its own ban on the trade to ensure the state doesn’t become a commercial hub of shark fins.
“By doing this we are aligning ourselves with similar language from the state of New York and Rhode Island,” Rep. Joseph Gresko, D-Stratford, said of the proposed bill. “We are trying to make sure that there’s no question … that we’re not going to be tolerating this.”
“The shark dies a horrible death and it’s not used for anything,” said Gresko of the discarded body. “The law is twofold. We’re trying to make the shark population come back … and not having Connecticut be the place for illegal trade and distribution of fins.”
The fins are used in traditional Chinese Medicine and for shark fin soup, a dish that is considered a delicacy and is served at banquets or holiday celebrations.
A spike in demand during the 2000s for shark fin soup caused a rush of overfishing, and many shark species have become threatened or endangered as a result, experts say. But sharks weren’t doing well long before that.
“Decades ago, even before (the movie) “Jaws,” people would go out and kill sharks for the sake of killing sharks,” said Peter Auster, a senior research scientist at Mystic Aquarium and emeritus professor at the University of Connecticut. Most local sharks were killed for trophies, but “there’s also always been a market for shark meat,” he said. “The largest fish-eating sharks taste like swordfish and would be substitutes on the market.”
Shark finning was made illegal in U.S. waters with the passage of the Shark Finning Act in 2000, which made it illegal to remove shark fins, and discard their bodies while at sea.
“This will preclude killing a long-lived, lowreproductive output animal … simply for its fin,” said Auster, adding that many shark species were threatened specifically because of the fin trade. The practice caused the shark population to collapse, resulting in a systemic, cascading problem in the ocean’s ecosystems and control over predators and prey among marine life, he said.
While demand for shark fins isn’t high in the United States, U.S. ports and shipping facilitated the trade of fins globally, scientists say. To close that loophole Congress passes the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act in December of 2022, making it illegal to possess, buy, sell, or transport shark fins or products containing shark fins.
“This is significant progress,” said Auster of the proposed Connecticut legislation. “It’s important because it fills this gap where Connecticut can’t become this point of transshipment.”
He said that it was important that Connecticut not fall out of step with nearby states or the federal government. Without the ban, Connecticut’s proximity to huge population centers like New York City and Boston would make it attractive to move shark fins here, he said.
State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes and advocates on behalf of the local fishing industry offered testimony in support of the bill in recent weeks, saying the bill should protect sharks, without harming local fishermen.
Some advocates don’t think the ban goes far enough, however. Annie Hornish, state director of the Connecticut Humane Society pointed out that the bill specifically carves out an exemption for “smooth hounds,” a genus of dogfish. There is a managed smooth hound fishery in the New England region.
“You run into the problem of a restaurant serving soup where yes you could determine where that fin came from but it’s not likely that resources will be put toward the scientific analysis of the product,” said Hornish. Without molecular testing it’s almost impossible to determine what species the fin came from.
She said to fully eradicate shark finning, the state needs to make it entirely illegal to sell or possess all fins, and not make an exception, as it creates loopholes for people to hide otherwise illicit wildlife trade.
DEEP officials said the dogfish exception in the proposed bill follows federal and neighboring state guidelines.
“From the standpoint of regulatory alignment, and also not wanting to disadvantage our fishing industry relative to neighboring states the agency would prefer that the bill maintain the exemption for smooth dogfish,” said Justin Davis assistant director of the DEEP Fisheries Division. In the coming years the federal government plans to reconsider the smooth dogfish fishery, he said, adding: “In the near future there is a possibility that the federal government ... will modify the exemption for dogfish fins, and then coastal states will follow suit.”