Busted: Fishing Boat Caught With Contraband Shark Fins
In this week’s crime blotter: a lucrative catch, rhino poaching, and a hunt for an illegal logger.
They’ve been called chewy and stringy, gelatinous and bland. But the well-heeled will still pony up a hundred dollars to eat them in a bowl of soup.
In China especially, shark fins are prized as a status symbol, served along with chicken broth at business meetings, weddings, and other events to flaunt wealth. Fishermen often don’t want the sharks themselves, so they cut off the fins and throw the mutilated animal overboard to save space in the boat.
Many countries have banned shark finning, including Taiwan. But Taiwanese police say that didn’t stop one fishing crew from doing it.
On June 11, coast guard inspectors allegedly found four shark fins in a registered boat at the fishing port of Hualien, without their carcasses
