Shark finning is driven by the fact that the animals' fins are highly valuable in comparison with shark carcasses.

BBC: MEPs vote to close 'shark finning' loopholes

Hammerheads are among the most commonly caught sharks for finning.

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Finning is also deemed cruel because the fins are often removed while the animal is still alive - it then drowns when it is thrown back into the sea.

BBC: MEPs vote to close 'shark finning' loopholes

At 15 he started, 48 hours a week chopping up fish in some poky hole, getting shocks from the finning machine, steeping his skinned, sore hands in brine or pickle-juice.

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They want a meaningful ban on the practice of shark finning, which involves a shark's fins being removed before the rest of the animal is thrown back into the ocean to die.

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The researchers hope the findings will help discourage the practice of shark-finning, in which the fins of as many as 70 million sharks a year are sliced off and the sharks are dumped back into the ocean to die.

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"Sharks are still hunted in some waters as part of the finning industry where, horribly enough, they take the fins for shark fin soup and discard the rest of the body - that is the biggest threat to all sharks worldwide, " she said.

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