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Bahamas Shark Fishing

July 6, 2011 by · Comments Off on Bahamas Shark Fishing 

Bahamas Shark FishingBahamas Shark Fishing, The Bahamas on Tuesday announced a ban on shark fishing, the last country to protect the ancient sea predators is considered at risk due to demand for their fins in Chinese cooking.

The Atlantic Ocean archipelago, said it was banning commercial fishing for sharks in their 243,000 miles square (630,000 km ²) of water, along with the sale, import or export of shark products.

“People say, ‘Why support the sharks? They just eat people and eat other fish.” But in reality there is more to sharks than that, “said Neil McKinney, president of the National Endowment for the Bahamas, which manages the country’s resources.

“They desperately need protection in case you’re not going to take them to extinction,” he told reporters in the capital, Nassau, pointing to the “extremely important” role of sharks in the ecosystem balance.

The Pew Environment U.S. group has campaigned worldwide to promote the protection of sharks. Prior to the Bahamas, Honduras, Maldives and Palau have also declared sanctuaries for sharks.

Environmentalists say that around 73 million sharks are killed each year, usually by piracy of their fins, which can reach lucrative prices, as Chinese soups are served as a delicacy.

The Bahamas is tourism as an important industry and a recent study found that diving with sharks and worth to 80 billion annually, a figure the government hopes to increase once the ban comes into force.

The Bahamas in 1993 banned longline fishing, which has largely prevented fishing for sharks. But no specific law prohibiting the commercial slaughter of sharks and environmentalists pushed for action after a fishing company last year said it would begin to capture the predator for export.

“The Bahamas is one of the few in the world the place where we have a relatively healthy population of sharks and a variety of species still exists, which is important if we are to maintain the population and whether they will replace the other areas “McKinney said.

California is considering imposing a ban on the sale of shark fins, which the activists hope to have a significant effect due to the large population of Chinese-American status.

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