Porbeagle Shark Video: One Shark Species Wins U.N. Protection While Others Fail

Porbeagle Video Clip from http://www.oceanfootage.com

Shark News Article Excerpt:
A U.N. wildlife conference placed one shark species (the porbeagle shark) on a protective list on Tuesday but blocked efforts to do the same for other types hunted to meet mounting Asian demand for shark fin soup.

COSTLY SOUP

One of the world's most expensive food products, a bowl of shark fin soup can cost $100, with a single fin worth more than $1,300. Up to 10 million kg of shark fin is exported annually to Hong Kong by nearly 87 countries, according to Oceana, a marine conservation group.

Up to 73 million sharks are killed each year, primarily for their fins, according to environmental organization Greenpeace. Sharks are especially vulnerable to over-fishing because they are late to mature, long-lived and produce few young.

Full News Story: http://planetark.org/wen/57278

Wikipedia Excerpt:
The porbeagle (Lamna nasus) is a species of mackerel shark that is distributed in the cold and temperate marine waters of the North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere. In the North Pacific, the closely related salmon shark (L. ditropis) takes its place. The porbeagle typically reaches 8.2 ft in length and a weight of 300 lb.

Preying mainly on bony fishes and cephalopods, the porbeagle is an opportunistic hunter that regularly moves up and down in the water column. The porbeagle is fast and highly active, with physiological adaptations that enable it to maintain a higher body temperature than the surrounding water. It can be solitary or gregarious, and has been known to perform seemingly playful behaviors.

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• porbeagle
• shark
• oceanfootage
• sharkfin
• soup
• overfishing
• endangered species