US protects sharks 9 February 2011 President Barack Obama signed
into force the Shark Conservation Act, which prohibits all shark
finning by US vessels and in US waters, two weeks after Congress
passed the bill. Henceforth US vessels must transport and land
sharks with their fins attached. The legislation also allows the
US to block seafood imports from countries that permit shark
finning. The new law is intended to stop the practice of
removing fins from sharks at sea and discarding the fish, alive
or dead. Shark meat has little commercial value but the fins are
highly prized and high priced in Asian markets. Requiring
vessels to retain the fish intact makes fin harvesting less
profitable. The new law stops loopholes in previous legislation
that required fishers to have on board carcasses that equated to
95 percent of the weight of fins; fishers would keep one huge
carcass to offset many more fins. One exception to the new law
exempts the North Carolina dogfishery. The compromise was
necessary to gain the ag