There are tons of reason to ban shark fin soup, and it’s not just because it’s cruel to sharks.

“Sharks have been around for nearly 400 million years, and could be wiped out in a single human generation due to an increasing demand for their fins,” said Knights. ”Fisheries regulation on the ground has utterly failed to reduce overfishing — market approaches like this are crucial.”

Fins from up to 73 million sharks per year are used to make shark fin soup, a vastly popular Asian delicacy. Captured at sea and hauled on deck, the sharks are often still alive while their fins are sliced off. Because shark meat is not considered as valuable as shark fin, the maimed animals are tossed overboard to drown or bleed to death. The process is called shark finning, a wasteful and cruel practice still legal in much of the world.

So in this context it is great to see that shark fin soup has been banned in yet another part of the world. Some people are afraid of sharks (I blame Jaws) yet sharks are vital to a healthy and function ocean ecosystem.

A hat tip to WildAid, where you can read the rest of the article.