An extensive study of 16,000 shark fin samples taken from Hong Kong retail markets has found that 6.5 per cent of them were from globally protected species, surpassing the figure officially declared by local authorities under an international agreement.
“This translates to over 95 per cent of the trade in oceanic whitetip sharks being illegal,” said Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, which collaborated with Florida International University in the study led by researchers from Mote Marine Laboratory.
The study aimed to assess the impact of the trade on imperilled shark populations.
The team collected and analysed about 16,000 samples from Hong Kong’s retail markets between 2014 and 2021 by focusing on trimmings – small pieces produced during the processing of fins – to avoid the high cost of whole fins and increase the sample size.
They achieved precise species identification of processed fragments by using DNA forensic analysis.
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