Nassau, Bahamas – If you are wondering why so much attention is being directed at shark conservation in recent times Matt Rand, Director of Global Shark Conservation of the PEW Environment Group says it is all becomes of an Asian obsession with shark fin soup.
"Unfortunately, because of their value in a bowl of soup, up to 73 million sharks are killed annually, just so their fins can end up in soup. It is a luxury item, it is not a food item. And what this is causing very rapidly is a global depletion of sharks. Right now 38% of shark species that are in the world's oceans are threatened, or are near threatened with extinction; and those are just the ones that we know. We also know that that statistic is actually short," said Rand.
This global decimation of the shark population is now having a negative impact on the ecosystems of many oceans, but Rand says but for a country that has tourism as its number one industry, potentially there can be a more devastating outcome.
Read the story and see the video at The Bahamas Weekly.