Sharks are older than dinosaurs and have barely changed through the ages. They’ve held pride of place at the pinnacle of the food chain in oceans all over the world. That is, until human greed and mismanagement started to rob the sea of some of its most magnificent of creatures. Now, sharks are perilously close to disappearing altogether.

Much maligned and fearsome in appearance, sharks very rarely attack humans (lightning strikes and bee stings are responsible for vastly more fatalities) but, ironically, now sharks have good reason to fear humans, thanks to the unchecked surge in global demand for shark products.

Picture this: a magnificent shark, hauled onto the blood-splattered deck of a fishing trawler. Next, its fins are hacked off; then the writhing, very much alive body is tossed back overboard to slowly, excruciatingly, bleed to death. The purpose of this ghoulish suffering? A gruesome grasp for machismo and status in the form of shark-fin soup, prized in many Asian societies as a status symbol and vested with dubious claims of potency.

Heartless, ruthlessly cruel, unsustainable and unethical, this ugly trade is escalating to a point where it represents the single greatest threat to shark species worldwide. Though shark fin was once considered an exclusive status symbol and the preserve of the very wealthy, economic growth in China and other parts of Asia has ushered in a new era and shark fin soup, alarmingly, has become routine at weddings, banquets and business dinners worldwide. While originally shark fin products were purchased by a few million wealthy Chinese in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore, the appetite for such “delicacies” has now exploded to tens of millions of people in China alone, all eager to be seen consuming these trophy foods.

Shark fins can fetch well over $100 per kilogram when exported to Asian markets, which makes shark-hunting an especially lucrative form of fishing. Fins are typically sold dockside, for cash, by mafia–like cartels. This makes it difficult to track just how many sharks are being killed. What is known, however, is that finning is increasingly taking place in marine reserves and eco-treasures such as the Galapagos Islands.

According to UN Food and Agricultural Organisation and US-based environmental pressure group WildAid, about 100 million sharks are killed each year just to supply the burgeoning thirst for shark fin soup, a slaughter akin to slaying elephants for their ivory.

There is absolutely no scientific evidence to substantiate the claimed medicinal and potency enhancements attributed to shark fins. At present, it is not at all illegal to sell shark–fin soup and, strictly speaking, finning is not banned; rather, regulations have attempted to limit the extent of the practice.

Overfishing

Along with fins, demand is spiralling for shark meat as well as liver and oil, which is used in health and beauty products even though botanical alternatives are available. As a consequence, populations of shark species have crashed worldwide due to overfishing, says Glenn Sant, global marine expert at conservation group Traffic.

Sharks are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because most species grow slowly, mature late and produce few young. Once an area has been overfished, it’s extremely difficult for populations to recover. As the shark is the prime predator in a critical ecosystem — the ocean — a collapse in its numbers has the potential for a catastrophic impact on marine ecology.

At present, there are no international limits on shark harvesting and hardly any research into what might constitute sustainable catch levels. Even when sharks aren’t directly targeted, it’s estimated that 50 million sharks are captured annually as “by-catch” of commercial fishing operations, to be thrown back overboard, injured and dying.