Eating shark fin will poison you

Meanwhile, in Taiwan, legislators urged the Department of Health to require that restaurants serving dishes with shark fins provide warnings cautioning pregnant women not to eat the prized ingredient, which can contain dangerous levels of mercury. Sharks are at the top of the ocean food chain and their consumption of tainted small fish and organisms has left a number of them contaminated by mercury.

Ruling Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin said at a news conference attended by lawmakers from across the political spectrum that shark finning is not only cruel, but also a main cause of the rapid decline of global shark populations.

It is common practice for many foreign fishing vessels to remove the fins from captured sharks and then throw the sharks back into the sea alive because their meat is worth little and the fishermen want to leave room on board for more of the valuable fins. When tossed back into the ocean, the finless sharks, unable to move and pass water over their gills, are left to an agonizing death and drown