Tony Carnie
September 11 2009 at 07:17AM

Foreign fishermen are continuing to hack the fins off sharks in South African waters and toss the animals back into the sea while they are alive.

Most of the butchered sharks drown, starve or are eaten by other predators because they are no longer able to swim or hunt.

"Finning" is illegal in South Africa, but Richards Bay and Mossel Bay anglers have produced photographs of at least two sharks that survived despite crippling wounds.

Millions of sharks are believed to die in this way each year because of the growing demand for shark fin soup, a delicacy at Chinese and other Far Eastern weddings and banquets.

'This barbaric practice is banned in South African waters'
Because sharks are heavy and their meat has a fairly low commercial value, shark-finners find it more convenient to chop off the highly valued fins and dump the crippled animals back in the sea.

The fins are believed to fetch between $400 (about R3 000) and $700 a kilogram.

The crew of three foreign fishing vessels have been fined in South Africa this year for removing shark fins and related offences.

In an article in the latest edition of an Oceanographic Research Institute, Durban, bulletin, senior scientist Bruce Mann published photographs of two sharks whose fins had been removed.

"That these animals survived is quite remarkable because most sharks that are finned and tossed back in the water are likely to die a slow and painful death," he said.

"This barbaric practice is banned in South African waters and these photographs are evidence that it is still taking place, probably by illegal longliners."

Mann urged fishermen who found similar evidence of finning to help stamp out the practice by alerting the authorities.

A definned shark was caught earlier this year at Danabaai, south of Port Elizabeth. Its dorsal fin and both of its pectoral fins had been chopped off.

A second mangled animal was caught by angler Barry Tedder about 30km north of Richards Bay. Tedder said there was clear evidence that the fin had been cut off cleanly with a knife. The shark seemed to have survived by relying on its tail for propulsion.

Tedder said he was a regular visitor to Mozambique and had seen abundant evidence of widespread finning by fishermen in the Vilanculos area.

Peter Knights, of conservation group Wildaid, said demand for shark fin soup was high in the East.

o This article was originally published on page 1 of The Mercury on September 11, 2009

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