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Nearly 16,000kg of shark fins were seized in India between January 2010 and December 2022, with Tamil Nadu accounting for the maximum number of such incidents, a new analysis by TRAFFIC and WWF-India has found.
These constituted the most common shark products seized, over 80%, with significant volumes of shark cartilage and teeth, according to the factsheet.
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Demand for shark fins and meat is high in the global market. Shark fins are the most sought-after products, mostly used to prepare ‘shark fin soup’. Shark meat is consumed as food, skin used for leather, liver oil as lubricant, in cosmetics and as a source of vitamin A, cartilage for chondroitin sulphate extraction for medicines, and jaws and teeth to make curios.
The findings are significant because the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) in February proposed to demarcate ‘shark hotspots’ in Indian waters in the wake of the declining trend of shark catches.
Demarcating hotspots safeguard endangered species, juveniles, and breeding adults from targeted fishing, CMFRI said. The landings of elasmobranchs, a group that includes sharks, rays, and guitarfish, declined by approximately 55% between 2012 and 2022, CMFRI said.
TRAFFIC analysed open-sourced media reports on incidences of seizures of shark derivatives from January 2010 to December 2022, and found 17 incidents of shark derivatives in illegal trade, of which fins were the most seized derivative (15,839.5kg), reported in 82% of the cases.
Other derivatives seized included cartilage (1,600 kg) and teeth (2,445). In 35% of the seizures, other wildlife contraband seized including sea cucumbers, sea horse, pipefish, corals, seashells, pangolin scales, skin and antlers of deer, elephant tusks, tiger claws, camel bone, kangaroo pelts, porcupine quills, tortoise shells, etc.
Tamil Nadu accounted for nearly 65% of shark seizure incidents, followed by Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala, and Maharashtra. The confiscated products were transported to Singapore, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Sri Lanka, and mainland China.
“The demand for shark fins and meat is a major driver of the global shark fishery. Shark fins are the most sought-after shark product used to make shark-fin soup, a delicacy,” said Merwyn Fernandes, associate director of TRAFFIC India.
Sharks are top predators in the oceanic food web and prey on various aquatic species, including plankton, fish, crustaceans and marine mammals. Overfishing, coupled with low biological productivity, puts them at a higher risk of extinction when compared to most other vertebrates.
Of the 160 shark species reported in India, only 26 sharks and rays have been given the highest protection status in Schedules I and II under the amended Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The species in Appendix I and II of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) have been listed in Schedule IV of the Act.
“Illegal shark trade is a serious conservation threat to sharks not just in India but across the globe. Misdeclaring relevant species on permits is one of the main ways sharks are traded illegally worldwide. The lack of capacity to identify shark fins against numerous potential shark species in trade is a significant gap in curbing their illicit trade. Insufficient monitoring mechanisms further make it challenging to differentiate between legal and illegal trade of sharks,” said Dipankar Ghose, senior director of biodiversity conservation, WWF India.
Shoba Joe Kizhakudan, head of the Finfish Fisheries Division at CMFRI, last month said that sharks have not evolved to withstand overexploitation.
“They cannot reproduce fast enough to make up for the increasing number of deaths every year as most sharks have a long lifespan and low reproductive output,” she said, adding that the presence of juveniles in landings further intensifies the threat to their sustainable population.
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