European fleets are among the world’s leaders in fishing for
sharks. The most valuable parts of most sharks are their fins,
which are a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. Shark meat is less
profitable, which results in a strong economic incentive to cut
off the fins and discard the carcass back into the sea, a
practice called shark “finning”. The Council of the European
Union prohibited shark finning in 20031, but in 2006 the
European Parliament questioned whether the regulations in place
are effective at preventing this practice. An expert workshop on
shark fisheries in Europe, convened by the Shark Alliance and
funded by the Lenfest Ocean Program, was held in Brussels in
October 2006. Participants described and compared data on shark
biology, fisheries, markets and trade (described in the full
report), and developed recommendations regarding precautionary,
science-based management methods to prevent the practice of
shark finning. This Lenfest Ocean Program Research Series report
is a summary of the expert worksho