Shark finning — removing fins from live sharks and discarding the body at sea — causes prolonged, agonising death and has driven dramatic population declines in species critical to ocean ecosystem health.
Shark finning is among the most acute welfare harms in marine fisheries. The practice is designed to maximise value per vessel trip while discarding the majority of the animal — a purely economic calculation that subjects animals to slow, painful death. Sharks have complex nervous systems, show stress responses, and almost certainly experience the finning process as extreme suffering. The welfare case against finning is unambiguous. The conservation case is equally strong: sharks grow slowly, mature late, and reproduce infrequently, making populations highly vulnerable to overexploitation. Welfare and conservation arguments converge completely here — stopping finning benefits individual animals and entire ocean ecosystems simultaneously.