By Samantha Hayes
Environmental groups have launched a campaign to end a practice known as shark finning.
It’s already an offence to remove shark fins from live fish, but fish that are killed first are fair game, and conservationists say often everything but the fin is simply dumped over the side.
ITM Fishing Show host Matt Watson this morning signed up in support of the proposed ban on the practice, which sometimes sees only 2 percent of the fish used.
“I've seen it, I’ve seen it happen first hand,” he says. “Having been at sea I’ve seen carcasses of sharks being discarded overboard.”
New Zealand Shark Alliance representative Katrina Subedar says our regulations are currently lagging behind the rest of the world.
“This is unsustainable and a wasteful practice, and the rest of the world has recognised this, but New Zealand hasn't,” she says.
But the organisation responsible for fishery sustainability insists that most of the time, the whole shark is taken.
Deepwater Group marine biologist George Clement says smaller sharks in particular get used in New Zealand.
“We have a number of fisheries in New Zealand which are the mainstays of Friday night fish and chips for families with rig and school shark, and most of that shark is used,” he says.
But he admits that “some other shark, the larger sharks are difficult to use”.
Fins alone can fetch as much as a $1200 a kilogram, and exports make New Zealand $3 million a year. Mr Clement says keeping whole sharks can damage the rest of a boat’s catch.
“If it contaminates the rest of the catch like ammoniation from sharks can do, it might be a good reason to keep the best of the catch and not allow the sharks to contaminate it.”
But the Shark Alliance has another suggestion.
“Bring the whole thing back,” says Watson. “The reason they're not doing that is because it takes up a lot of room in their ice holds that could be taken up with a high-value fish like tuna.”
The Government is currently reviewing its stance on shark finning. But the practice has already been banned by 98 other countries, and further conservation measures which apply to the high seas mean sharks are currently better protected outside our exclusive economic zone than in it.
3 News