The Center for Biological Diversity has submitted a petition to NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S.] Fisheries, urging the agency to identify and impose sanctions on China for extensive shark finning conducted by commercial fishing vessels. According to the environmental group, Chinese-flagged ships have caught and finned thousands of sharks in offshore waters, yet China has failed to take sufficient measures to stop the practice.
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The group notes that in 2024, China and Japan blocked an attempt by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas to adopt a fins-naturally-attached policy, despite support from about 80 percent of member parties.
An investigation by the Environmental Justice Foundation released earlier this year reported widespread shark finning among China’s distant-water fleet. The nonprofit interviewed 81 fishers from 60 Chinese-flagged vessels and found that 60 percent of those vessels allegedly engaged in finning sharks and disposing of their bodies. The report also noted that China’s regulation on controlling shark finning does not apply to squid vessels operating in the Southeast Pacific.
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In its petition, the Center for Biological Diversity asserts that China’s distant-water longline fishing fleet regularly targets sharks and also harvests them as bycatch within regional fishery management organization convention areas globally. The group claims that in 2023, Chinese-flagged vessels discarded more than 10,000 blue sharks and nearly 1,700 shortfin mako sharks in the Western and Central Pacific.
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