Shark Fin Ban

California state legislators have introduced a bill that would outlaw the possession, sale, and distribution of shark fins. The bill was introduced by assemblymen Paul Fong of Sunnyvale and Jared Huffman of San Rafael, and is backed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and The Humane Society of the United States. The practice of shark finning usually involves slicing off sharks’ fins, and then throwing the animals back into the ocean where they bleed or suffocate to death from their inability to swim. Using only the fin of the animal leads to around 26 to 73 million sharks deaths per year, according to the NRDC. In recent decades, shark populations have declined by as much as 90 percent.