Should Shark Finning Be Banned

There is a higher chance for ticket buyers to win the lottery than for a person to be attacked by a shark. Yet there’s a cultural fear of sharks everywhere due to the demonization of them, and the fear makes anyone scared of sharks blind to the fact they’re dying in radical numbers due to the disgusting act of finning. Shark finning should be banned worldwide because it is a wasteful and cruel act, it will cause the extinction of sharks, and sharks are important to the environment and therefore should be protected.

Finning is wasting the entire shark just for their fins and the way it’s carried out is very inhumane. For instance, in “Sharks Under Attack”, Sarah Bennington explains how it works, “Many of the sharks caught as bycatch fall victim

If it continues to go, then they might all become extinct. For example, also in "Air China Bans Transport of Shark Fins", it states the number of sharks killed every year just by humans. Humans are a bigger threat to sharks than they are to humans. Only a few out of over 400 species are actually a threat to human lives. Over 100 million sharks are murdered by humans every year, and it’s a high number for any animal but it’s endangering to sharks because they don’t breed very quickly due to their biological composition (NewsCurrents Read to Know). Sharks reproduce very slowly and they can’t keep up with the rate that humans are killing them off at. With that inbalance, they’re getting closer and closer to extinction everyday, but with a ban on finning that would cut down over half of those casualties and keep the sharks from dying off. Consequently, because they’re being killed off in large unmoderated amounts there a species of sharks already extinct and in "Bad to the Bone", written by Michael A. Rivlin, he writes “Because of such biological profiles, most shark fisheries have experienced brief booms, followed by long busts. To take one notorious example, in 1961 Norwegian longliners began catching porbeagle sharks in the Northwest Atlantic. By 1964 the catch was 8,060 tons each year; just four years later it had dropped to 207 tons. The porbeagle population has never recovered,” (Rivlin). It’s a

For instance, Anna Ling Kaye wants to look into other options than finning, saying that there are cheaper ways to save the sharks than an expensive ban, which will make fins a black market product. This has already happened with bear gall bladder and rhinoceros horn and shark fins have already become more expensive because countries have been beginning to ban it (Kaye). Just because it makes the product more expensive does not exclude the benefits of a ban, because it actually makes them more of a hassle to acquire. So even if it does cost a lot of money that means that it will eventually dwindle down to where very few people are able to purchase it and will therefore save the lives of many sharks. Moreover, in “Why Shark Finning Bans Aren't Keeping Sharks Off The Plate (Yet)” by Alastair Bland, he says “Clarke says bans on finning could actually be driving new markets for shark meat. That, she speculates, is because in places where sharks were once de-finned and their carcasses dumped at sea, now whole sharks are being delivered to port. While their fins would remain the more valued item, it is likely that fishermen may be selling the meat and creating new appetites for a product that wasn't before utilized – bad news for sharks,”