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  Yahoo News 17 May 07
Soaring shark fin demand driving extinction threat: report

China's booming middle class is fuelling demand for shark fins for soup, experts said Wednesday, as they called on the European Union to halt the fall in dwindling stocks.

The study, by Washington-based research group the Lenfest Ocean Program with backing from the Shark Alliance, a coalition of some 30 conservation groups, calls on the EU to end "finning" in its waters.

"Finning" is when fishermen catch sharks and cut off their fins before throwing the carcasses back into the sea, leaving space on their boats for more valuable catches.

Researchers say that whole carcasses should be brought back to port before fins are chopped off to allow officials to get an accurate picture of how many sharks are being killed.

Quotas could then be set to help protect the 30 percent of shark species in European waters which are threatened with extinction, they add.

Sarah Fowler, co-chairman of the IUCN World Conservation Union Shark Specialist Group and one of the report's lead authors, told a press conference that China was the biggest market for shark fins from Europe.

"The middle class in China is becoming wealthier and they're spending more money and shark fin is the ultimate luxury -- it's something you have to have at your wedding, your banquet, your business dinner," she said. "The demand is enormous and it's growing at about five percent a year."

Sonja Fordham, policy director for the Shark Alliance, added that the EU was key in determining not only what happened to sharks in its own waters but also because of its "strong influence" on nations around the world.

"Finning bans alone will not safeguard sharks from depletion," she told reporters. "We need to have an overall management plan that includes limits on the catch of sharks."
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