His organisation is campaigning for a large Marine Protected Area to be established here to protect the sharks from boat damage and fin-poaching.

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These include polar bears, rays and sharks that are heavily fished for shark fin soup.

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"Young people want to conserve sharks but their families feel that shark's fin must be served at important events such as wedding banquets, " says the executive director, Simon Wong.

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John McCosker, chairman of aquatic biology at the California Academy of Sciences, estimates that 90% of the sharks that once inhabited the world's oceans have now disappeared, due to overfishing and shark finning a practice in which sharks are captured and their fins are sliced off for use in shark-fin soup.

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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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