Online Sales of Shark Fin? - You Bet

Wolfgang in the Bahamas. Amanda Cotton amazing shot

Back in the day a loosely knit group pre-shark activists took to the Internet to demand that Alibaba.com stop selling shark fin online.

Lead by the irascible and wizened shark sage Wolfgang Leander, and worked on by a host of others, Alibaba.com eventually caved and stopped selling shark fin.

A victory?

You could say so. It was really that first corporate turnabout and a movie that appeared shortly after which started the shark conservation movement as we know it today with a plethora of shark groups, agendas, and some real wins to celebrate five years later.

But the story of online sales has not ended. Like a water balloon, in the corporate world if you squeeze a market on one side it bulges out the other, and where shark fin is concerned at $300-500 a kilo, that marketplace is still thriving.

Or so says Mark Harding who highlighted Rich Clothier from Shark Guardians this week.

We have to agree. Over a year ago we posted this finding online to mostly dead air from the shark conservation community working on consumption side economics of the shark fin equation.

But sales online continue, they may not be called shark fin anymore, fish maw, fish bones, and other names have changed the way traders seek buyers. In fact 90% of the sellers who sell dried seafood products still, when asked, will provide and source shark fin.

How do we know?

We have been involved with this since 2007. It's not hard to track online portals, pose as a buyer, and ask for shark fin. The results are immediate and abundant to the tune of several thousand kilos per transaction and sometimes even more.

Are there solutions to this problem? You bet.

But the problem has become a 'wider problem' if you want to harness the conservation bandwidth out there to make a dent in the trade. Right now that doesn't seem to be the case.

TradeKey.com Celebrates 5 Million Members Milestone - Sells Sharks Fin

TradeKey.com, the second largest B2B online trading marketplace on the planet is celebrating, and this week we received an invitation to join the online sales of...dried sharks fin.

We have been tracking the online sales of dried and fresh shark fin after Alibaba.com stopped selling all shark fin in 2008.

At the time Alibaba.com was the single largest purveyor of shark fin on the Internet. Moving thousands of tons of shark fin each month.

The results from our tracking are not good, and trade continues unabated on several sites like TradeKey.com and others.

While TradeKey.com celebrates 5 million registered users this week, shark fin traders from around the world have another reason to celebrate as shark fin from Morocco, New Zealand, and Oman make their way to waiting international markets.

Anyone up for round two?

Shark Fin -Tracing the Crime Scene

When sharks are caught and finned the resulting dried product becomes an instant cash crop.

Fins are sold for $200-500 per pound USD.

Over the past decade this "harvest of disaster" has decimated shark stocks worldwide, bypassing even the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Appendix II demands for monitoring and enforcement of endangered shark species.

Once dried sharks fin hit the open marketplace even endangered species fin cannot be traced back to the original "crime scene."

All that has changed with the stunning announcement of new DNA tests that geographically tag fins and identify species back to their home waters.

For shark conservation this single tool could lead to a serious curtail of shark fin sales globally until certification measures could be put in place to all but guaranteed bundles of dried sharks fin contained no endangered species.

A great tool. Now for the hard part, cross border political will to actually enforce CITES Appendix II.

Complete press release.

Alibaba.com-Sharks Fin Round Two

When we had heard that Alibaba.com was going to remove sharks fin from it's web portals naturally we were a bit sceptical that in fact this lucrative trading market would be removed voluntarily.

On January 1st, 2009 were were pleasantly surprised to discover all overt sales of sharks fin had been removed from Alibaba.com Many in the shark conservation world hailed this as a great victory and presented Alibaba.com with kudos both online and in the news. Overt sharks fin had been removed from one of the largest web trading portals on the planet.

Our policy has been to verify results. Shark conservation projects should never accept half measures and what we subsequently discovered at Alibaba.com was not good news at all.

On January 2, we were able to source close to 80,000lbs of sharks fin by just requesting it from the sellers of shark products via their site. A loophole. We followed up this discovery with a post about what might be done to mitigate these sales on Alibaba.com. A Red List would inform and educate both sellers and buyers of sharks fin and other banned products at Alibaba.com.

These suggestions were modeled from the kind of safeguards you find at industrial chemical sales portals, the software for these safeguards exists and the implementation of these safeguards a relatively simple matter.

This week we went back to Alibaba.com posing as a buyer once again in search of sharks fin and this time asking for 4000kilos a week or 8, 800lbs. The results were promising.

Of 10 sellers of dried shark, and whole shark products only two answered our request, both said they could source as much sharks fin as we requested. This represents a big drop in the numbers of positive answers to buyers interested in sharks fin via Alibaba.com.

Here is one of the results:

Subject:	Re:Inquiry about Dried Salted Shark Meat
From:	Mr Hxxx Cxxx
Date:	Fri, Jan 16 2009 09:26:08 (GMT)

Dear Sirs,

We have those stock . can you come chose and pay cash ?
if interested, please contact us thru bellow email :

dried.fxx@xxx.co.id

thank you,
Hxxx Cxxx

Message IP Address:125.xxx.x.x
Message Origin:Indonesia

Shark Fin Du Jour-Sponsored by Yahoo! Inc

Our weekly feature at Underwater Thrills:Swimming With Sharks is the "Shark Fin Du Jour".

It's a look at Alibaba.com the NYSE of shark fin products on the Internet-Sponsored by Yahoo! Inc.

We will take you into the individual sellers listed on that site and introduce the top companies, what species they sell, and how many thousands of pounds of shark fins they have for sale on the global market.

Today our Shark Fin Du Jour is Stavcorp Australia Pty Ltd who can source a stunning 10 tons of sharks fins a month and who have a minimum order of shark fin via Alibaba.com of 3000 kilograms or 6500 pounds-per order.

To put this into perspective 10 tons of sharks fin equals roughly 11,000 dead sharks-per order.

Shark Fin Du Jour-Sponsored by Yahoo! Inc

Our new weekly feature on Underwater Thrills:Swimming With Sharks is the "Shark Fin Du Jour".

It's a weekly look at Alibaba.com the NYSE of Shark Fin Products on the Internet-Sponsored by Yahoo! Inc.

We will take you into the individual sellers listed on that site and introduce the top companies, what species they sell and how many thousands of pounds of shark fins they have for sale on the global market.

Today our Shark Fin Du Jour is Mariss International Inc-india who can actually source Whale Shark Meat and Skin:

WE OFFER WHALE SHARK MEAT,WHITE COLOR,WITHOUT BLOOD STAINS, 1TO 4KG SIZES ,IQF,IWP 20 KG NET PACK. QUANTITY- 2X40 FCL PER MONTH TILL MAY. AND ITS SKIN ,WHITE COLOR (FAT)1TO 4 KG ,IQF,IWP 20 KG NET PACK. QUANTITY- 2X40 FCL PER MONTH TILL MAY. ORIGIN-WEST COAST OF INDIA. PRESHIPMENT INSPECTION OR ON LINE INSPECTION BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF BUYER IS MOST WELCOME. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED PLS RESPOND TO FAX NO:+91 484 482498.

Shark blood 'offers cancer hope'

Here's what's wrong with this weeks story from Australia. It has the words "sharks" and "cancer" in close proximity.

For anyone in the shark conservation world we all remember too vividly the wild neo-scientific pondering of shark cartilage and cancer cures. The end result was a decades long rush for raw shark product and the death of millions of sharks for cartilage that years later proved no link between cures for cancer.

Now this.

With the numbers of sharks being killed for both sharks fin and sharks liver (squalene) the planet can ill afford another headlong rush into sharks blood cancer cures. Soon to be available on yours and ours favorite web portal Alibaba.com.

Shark Fin Du Jour-Sponsored by Yahoo! Inc

Our new weekly feature on Underwater Thrills:Swimming With Sharks is the "Shark Fin Du Jour".

It's a weekly look at Alibaba.com the NYSE of Shark Fin Products on the Internet-Sponsored by Yahoo! Inc.

We will take you into the individual sellers listed on that site and introduce the top companies, what species they sell and how many thousands of pounds of shark fins they have for sale on the global market.

Today our Shark Fin Du Jour is Escualia Market Spain who can source a staggering 220,000 pounds of sharks fin per month:

Company Dedicated To The Purchase And Sale Of Frozen Shark Fin's In The Market Spanish (VIGO)

Blue,
Mako
Hammer
Anex
Dogfish

About 100, 000 KG monthly

Shark Fin Du Jour-Sponsored by Yahoo! Inc

Our new weekly feature on Underwater Thrills:Swimming With Sharks is the "Shark Fin Du Jour".

It's a weekly look at Alibaba.com the NYSE of Shark Fin Products on the Internet-Sponsored by Yahoo! Inc.

We will take you into the individual sellers listed on that site and introduce the top companies, what species they sell and how many thousands of pounds of shark fins they have for sale on the global market.

Today our Shark Fin Du Jour is BTrade International who can source a staggering two tons of sharks fin per month:

Place of origin:	Bangladesh
Model No:	B.T
Fob Price:	FOB Chittagong, Air / Sea USD 1000~100000
Port:	Chittagong, Air / Sea
Payment Terms:	L/C,T/T
Minimum Order Quantity:	1 Ton Fish maws
Supply Ability:	2 Ton per Month 1
Package:	p.p bags
Delivery Time:	As soon Possible
Brand Name:	Shark Fin

Would Yahoo! Invest In?

Has the Internet search giant Yahoo! publicly invested in any of the following wild animal products?

1. Dried bear gall bladders?

2. Dried Black Rhino horn?

3. Dried Tiger penis?

4. Dried Sharks Fin?

If you answered yes to #4 you would be correct.

Now here's the kicker, how much would you imagine this California based Fortune 500 company has invested in the wholesale slaughter of millions of sharks for profit?

1. $10,000,000?

2. $50,000,000?

3. $75,000,000?

4. 1.2 Billion?

Again if you picked #4 you would be correct. Since 2003 Yahoo! has invested close to $1.2 billion dollars in Chinese web portal Alibaba.com home to the New York Stock Exchange of shark fins and shark products on the Internet. Direct sales through this site represent millions of sharks slaughtered live, just for their fins, while the rest of the animal is dumped back into the ocean.

To produce one ton of dried shark fin, an estimated 1200 animals are killed and then dumped.

Thus far Yahoo! has chosen to frame the issue and ongoing slaughter as a "cultural practices one". It would seem that Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang and Alibaba CEO Jack Ma choose only to recognize, invest in, and defend the more profitable "cultural practices" of Asia and beyond.

Whale Sharks-Being Loved To Death?

Gotta hand it to the Australians. While they have quite a few of the best sharks sites on the planet to either cage dive or rodeo sharks in for divers, they still have not quite figured out what to do with their whale sharks.

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the ocean-a quick run over to the good old Shark-Wiki tells us:

"This species, despite its enormous size (40 feet), does not pose any significant danger to humans. It is a frequently cited example when educating the public about the popular misconceptions of all sharks as "man-eaters". They are actually quite gentle and can be playful with divers. There are unconfirmed reports of sharks lying still, upside down on the surface to allow divers to scrape parasites and other organisms from their bellies. Divers and snorkellers can swim with this giant fish without any risk apart from unintentionally being hit by the shark's large tail fin."

So why is it that Australia enacted a series of rules and regulations that almost prohibit diving with these magnificent critters?

"This (code) includes a limit on the number of people in the water at any one time with the sharks, minimum distances that boats and snorkellers must keep from the sharks, and definitely no touching of the sharks".

The ONLY thing that will save the whale shark and sharks in general for the future-is divers seeing these animals in person. Too many sharks worldwide are being hunted for just their fins and the whale shark is on the top of that list. Divers who encounter these animals are 80% more likely to want to voice concern to local governments over issues relating to sharks.

Food, or soup for thought.