As the UN meets in Montreal to discuss saving biodiversity without the US, whose representatives are joining only as observers, conservationists are hailing one American step in the right direction: a likely ban on the trade of shark fins.
Although shark finning – the practice of cutting off shark fins and dumping the rest of the body back into the ocean – is illegal in the US, much of the trade in fins happens in US territory. As many as 73 million sharks are finned around the world each year.
