Hammerhead shark at the Utilian Cays
In September 2010, Honduran president Porfirio Lobo Sosa banned shark fishing in Honduran waters. Because of the dramatic increase in the popularity of shark fin soup as a delicacy in Asia, many developing countries, such as Honduras, are losing shark meat as a food staple. Shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins and the discard of the carcass at sea, where the shark, unable to swim, dies. It is a multi-billion dollar industry, with the prices of shark fins reaching upwards of $400 a pound in some markets. Shark specialists estimate that 100 million sharks are killed for their fins annually, and if this trend continues, sharks will become extinct in the next ten years, as most of the shark species have already been placed on the IUCN Red list as threatened, endangered, or critically endangered. In Utila, an island part of the Bay Islands Group in Honduras, Utilians still actively fish shark despite the ban – on my only trip to the Utilian cays, I encountered eight dead sharks of various species, some of which were female, and pregnant. Despite this, Honduran and Utilian postcards or tourist ephemera often feature images of sharks and advertise the diving possibilities thereof, despite the role of tourism in exacerbating already established issues on the island including; overfishing for tourist consumption, and the perpetuation of further economic inequalities that cause many islanders to have to turn to shark fishing to feed their families. (Not to mention, the ironic lack of shark species around the Utilian reef because of the aforementioned overfishing.) Sharks have controlled two thirds of our planet for more than 400 million years, and removing the world’s top predator will have a devastating impact on marine ecosystems worldwide. It is time we stop commodifying animals and begin to understand the invaluable contribution they bring to our planet.
Maja Zonjic is from Toronto, Canada.