Bill to Ban Trade of Shark Fins in United States Reintroduced in Congress

U.S. lawmakers this week reintroduced legislation that will ban the procuring for and selling of shark fins within the US.

The bill became once reintroduced within the U.S. Apartment of Representatives by Reps. Gregoria Kilili Sablan (I-MP) and Michael McCaul (R-TX).

Identical legislation became once launched within the rest Congress, passing the Apartment by a 310-107 vote. It furthermore cleared the Senate Commerce Committee and garnered the wait on of 47 Senate cosponsors, but never came to a vote on the Senate floor.

Whitney Webber, campaign director at Oceana, acknowledged she became once confident the bill would pass this time:

“It’s rare to hunt down a controversy that brings collectively the political, alternate and conservation communities. We applaud Reps. Sablan and McCaul for his or her persisted management to capture the US out of the shark fin alternate once and for all.

“All of us know the quiz for fins is decimating shark populations world huge and that’s a clear and straightforward system to wait on lower it. It’s time for the U.S. to once again be a prime in shark conservation. We must be half of our allies in Canada, who include closed their borders to the detrimental shark fin alternate and accomplish the the same within the US. We cease up for finding a direction forward on this crucial protest that a majority of Americans wait on. The U.S. wishes a fin ban now.”

A stare published in Nature earlier this 365 days chanced on that global oceanic shark and ray populations include declined by extra than 70% over the rest 50 years, with overfishing as the most well-known map off.

Oceana says the global shark fin alternate is a well-known driver of overfishing and the decline of shark populations world huge, with fins from as many as 73 million sharks ending up on the market yearly. The Nature stare known as for “proactive measures to prevent total collapse, this ought to be a be-cautious name for policymakers.”