Author: Malcolm Holland
Source: News.com.au
February 14, 2013

Shark fin meals are high on the menu list at banquets across Sydney this week as the city's Chinese population celebrates the Lunar New Year.
But the Federal government has no idea if any of the fins have come from countries where they are sliced off living sharks before their twitching bodies are dumped back into the ocean.

"Live finning" of sharks is considered one of the most inhumane, wasteful and cruel practices in the global animal trades and shark finning is a leading cause of a massive decline in shark numbers around the world over the past decade.

But the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said it did not know how many shark fins were imported into Australia each year or where the fins came from.

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