We are against the trade of shark fins in the United States and seek to ban its practice. When American restaurants and groceries provide shark fins, it supports international hunting practices that are cruel, removing only the dorsal fin and tossing the suffering shark back into the water to die slowly, and unsustainable, with an estimated rate of 100 million sharks killed per year.
Sharks are too valuable to our oceanic ecosystem: they have provided a natural balance for 450 million years that has supported health reef environments and slowing spread of disease among fish populations. They are too important to our own well being: commercial fisheries need sharks to hunt the predators (e.g., seals) that eat their game (e.g., salmon). We must do something, for our sake if not for theirs.