Live Sharks Finned and Discarded in West African Waters, According to New Report
Off the coast of West Africa, a crew member aboard a Chinese longline tuna fishing boat severs the fins from a living shark before casting it back into the ocean, where it will suffocate and drown. These valuable fins are destined for the port of Dakar, from which they will be transported to markets in Asia.
These valuable shark fins are then brought ashore at the port of Dakar, destined for shipment to Asia, where they are used in shark fin soup, a culinary item considered a delicacy in some nations, or for traditional medicinal purposes.
Shark finning, which involves detaching the fins and discarding the remainder of the shark, frequently while the animal is still alive, is widely banned by numerous regulatory bodies, national laws, and international agreements, even though catching specific shark species may be permitted.
Nevertheless, in recent years, illicit shark fins have been consistently offloaded in Dakar, recognized as one of Africa’s most active fishing hubs, by numerous Chinese and Taiwanese longline tuna boats, as detailed in a report published Thursday by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a London-based non-governmental organization.
While finning boosts the financial gains of fishing vessels, it also encourages the capture of sharks, both through targeted fishing and as accidental bycatch.
Conservation experts describe this practice as inherently cruel and wasteful, drawing parallels to the poaching of a rhinoceros for its horn. However, the issue extends beyond mere brutality.
Worldwide shark populations have experienced a swift decline because of industrial fishing activities; a study featured in the journal Nature indicates that their numbers, along with those of their relatives, rays, have fallen by 71% since 1970.
Beyond further reducing shark populations, finning frequently coincides with other forms of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, as well as human rights violations.
The research conducted by the EJF concentrated on Chinese and Taiwanese distant-water longline tuna vessels permitted to operate in the Atlantic, which represent two of the largest fleets of this type and are commonly associated with shark finning.
To investigate the situation, researchers interviewed 124 Indonesian and Filipino fishers who were employed on these vessels from 2020 to 2025.
During that period, 71 of the 130 vessels from these two Atlantic fleets called at Dakar. Based on accounts from the fishers, 41 of these vessels engaged in shark finning.
They reported that among those 41 vessels, 24 had offloaded fins in Dakar.
Callum Nolan, EJF’s head of ocean research, stated that this figure is probably “higher,” considering the data set only comprises explicit references from extensive interviews.
Senegal is a signatory to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), an organization that oversees fishing activities involving tuna and similar species in the Atlantic Ocean.
ICCAT not only prohibits keeping certain shark species but also mandates that the total weight of fins must not exceed 5% of the overall weight of sharks present on a vessel. This regulation aims to deter finning, yet it complicates accurate measurement.
One Indonesian fisherman featured in the EJF’s report, Jamaludin, was interviewed in a village near the coastal city of Cirebon on Java island.
The 29-year-old, identified by a single name, served on a Chinese-flagged tuna boat from 2018 to 2020, where he observed that significantly more fins were kept than shark bodies with fins attached.
He recounted that after finning sharks “daily,“ the crew would offload the fins in Dakar separately and “discreetly.”
“If there were police, the unloading was delayed,“ he said.
Other fishers shared comparable experiences with the EJF, noting that fins were frequently unloaded under the cover of darkness.
“The catch was unloaded first, whereas the fins were (unloaded) secretly … at night” one Indonesian fisher, who worked on a Chinese-owned longliner from 2024 to 2025, told the NGO, describing the operation as like “theft.”
Cheikh Ndiaye, an inspector for Senegal’s Directorate of Fisheries Protection and Surveillance, commented that illicit activities were more feasible at night when “sometimes there are not many people at the port,” and suggested that international observers should monitor fishing operations on these vessels.
Sharks, as apex predators, play a crucial role in regulating marine ecosystems and are “fundamentally important for the ecological integrity of our oceans,”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List indicates that 70% of pelagic shark species face the threat of extinction.
Concurrently, an estimated 80 to 101 million sharks are killed annually due to fishing operations.
Longline tuna fishing boats deploy lines of hooks that can extend for several kilometers, ensnaring a wide variety of marine life beyond just tuna.
In March, Greenpeace observers stationed off West Africa witnessed one longline tuna vessel capture eight sharks within 12 hours, and another vessel, which was Spanish-flagged, catch 32 sharks in 11 hours, with apparent finning observed on the latter, the NGO reported.
Iris Ziegler, who leads fisheries policies and ocean advocacy at the German marine NGO DSM, stated that the varied and challenging-to-enforce regulations across different fish management zones, nations, and international agreements render finning “literally impossible” to police efficiently.
She supports a worldwide “fins naturally attached” policy to address this “specifically cruel, wasteful way” of fishing.
This approach, also endorsed by the EJF, would require that fins stay attached to a shark’s body when brought ashore, thereby effectively stopping finning.
Furthermore, it would simplify inspections for port states and contribute to reducing the overall number of shark fatalities.
Afterall, Ziegler said, “if we lose the sharks, we lose our oceans.”
