28 September 2006 - Euro-MPs have backed a Green proposal to tighten a loophole which allows EU fishermen to remove shark fins at sea and dump the mutilated bodies overboard.

The EU banned the practice in 2003 but allowed fishing fleets to continue ‘finning’ sharks as long as they didn’t dump the bodies overboard.

Today’s vote – on a proposal which would have allowed more shark bodies to be dumped and would have hastened the extinction of a number of vulnerable shark species in EU waters – reverses that approach, and calls for the current rules to remain in place until new proposals are agreed to make it even harder for fisherman to get away with doing so.

Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas, one of the amendment’s co-signatories, said after the vote: “This decision is the first step towards closing an abominable loophole that allows fishing fleets to chase the valuable Asian soup market at the expense of animal welfare and protecting our biodiversity.

“The practise of finning involves hauling the animals on board, cutting off their fins and discarding the bodies, often still alive. I am delighted the majority of MEPs agreed with the Greens and taken this vital first step towards banning this barbaric practise.”

MEPs have effectively now asked The European Commission to draft an amendment to the current regulations, based on current scientific advice that shark populations are vulnerable and must be protected by requiring less sharks to be killed in this brutal and wasteful way.

Dr Lucas, who is a vice-president of the RSPCA and of the European Parliament’s cross-party animal welfare group, added: “Yet again we have seen today that Euro-MPs from across the EU and its political groups are in favour of strong legislation to protect animal rights and welfare. Now we need the Commission and individual governments to respond with the political will to translate this into action on the ground.”

ENDS