(from Morgan Erickson-Davis, MONGABAY.COM)

Last week the US Senate passed the Shark Conservation Act, which bolsters the prohibition of shark-finning in US waters and puts the US at the forefront of shark conservation.

Finning involves catching a live shark, cutting off its fins, then dumping it back into the water where it suffers a slow death of asphyxiation on the ocean floor. The fins are frozen or dried and then most are shipped to Asia where shark fin soup, a thin and gelatinous concoction, is a delicacy.

Globally, an estimated 73 million sharks are killed every year, primarily to support the shark fin trade. With 30 percent of all shark species threatened with extinction, the practice of finning is leading to crashes in many populations. For instance, scalloped hammerheads and dusky sharks off the eastern US coast have dropped by 80 percent since 1970. Even under strict regulations, it will take centuries for dusky shark populations to rebound to normal numbers.

Sharks are one of the oldest groups of vertebrates and have persisted through many extinction events, including the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction which killed off the dinosaurs and the earlier Permian Extinction which resulted in the loss of 90-95% of life on earth. The fact that many species are dwindling points to the fact that humans are changing the world in magnitudes that haven't been experienced for millions of years. For example, the great white shark which has been in existence for at least 16 million years is today listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature - an intergovernmental and NGO body). Many shark species inhabit small areas and are extremely prone to overfishing. One of these is the smoothtooth blacktip shark which exists only in the Gulf of Aden, near Yemen and is caught as bycatch by local fisheries.

The Shark Conservation Act was introduced by Reps. Madeleine Bordallo, D-Guam, Eni Faleomavaega, D-American Samoa, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, and creates a comprehensive fins-attached policy for all shark catches in US waters by amending flaws in previous legislation and working to elicit similar measures in other countries.

CNH TOURS ADDS:

In a 2006 report, the UNITED NATIONS estimates that up to 400,000 sharks per year were caught in Galapagos waters to feed the shark fin market, despite this being an illegal activity.   The sight of a vast school of hammerhead sharks is part of what attracts divers from around the world to Galapagos - supporting a strong scuba diving industry there.   The Galapagos National Park tries hard to monitor its vast marine reserve, but it can only do so much with its limited fleet of patrol vessels.   When in Galapagos, ask your naturalist guide about the latest developments in the control of shark finning there.  The picture below is of the Tiburon Martillo - a non-motorized monitoring platform usually anchored at Darwin and Wolf Islands, located far to the north-east of the main Galapagos archipelago.   These diver paradise islands are very rich in sharks, but given their distance, also the target of illegal shark fishermen from Ecuador and other countries.