An estimated 73-100 million sharks are killed each year, primarily for the fin trade. Shark finning — removing fins at sea and discarding live sharks — is one of the most wasteful and cruel fishing practices in the world.
Sharks experience nociception and show avoidance responses to harmful stimuli. The finning process causes severe pain and a prolonged death: finned sharks may take hours to die through blood loss or drowning as they sink to the seafloor unable to maintain movement. If the shark is conscious during this period, the suffering is extreme and prolonged. Even conventional shark fishing, which retains whole animals, causes significant welfare harm through prolonged struggle, barotrauma, and delayed landing. The scale of shark mortality — tens of millions of individuals annually — represents one of the largest single wildlife welfare crises on the planet, largely hidden below the ocean surface.