By Brian R. Hackett, Tim Dillingham and Marie Levine
(Star-Ledger guest columnists)
During 2019 Shark Week, The Humane Society of the United States, The Shark Research Institute, and The American Littoral Society, along with a broad coalition of more than 25 New Jersey businesses, environmental groups, and animal protection organizations have appealed to Speaker Craig Coughlin to advance an Assembly vote on A4845, a widely supported bill to ban the sale and trade of shark fins in New Jersey, and send an approved version of the bill to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk.
This is the second time the bill has passed both House committees and the full Senate, and it has never had more support.
Over the last several years, Garden State residents have learned more about the horrors of shark finning — the practice of cutting the fins off sharks, often while they are still alive, and then throwing the animals overboard to slowly die. Every year, tens of millions of sharks are killed globally for their fins, which are used for shark fin soup.
When is Shark Week 2019? The annual July and August TV event on Discovery Channel that pays homage to the toothy residents of the deep begins Sunday, July 28,
The bill is also backed by U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), author of a federal bill to ban the purchase, possession and sale of shark fins. S. 877, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act of 2019, enjoys broad bipartisan support. While the act of shark finning itself is prohibited under federal law, the U.S. market for fins continues to fuel the practice in foreign and high seas that have lax shark finning bans or inadequate shark management and conservation policy.
New Jersey, as a leading coastal state, should pass its own bill to take a stand and join a dozen other states — including our neighbors Delaware, Maryland, and New York — in doing its part to stop this unsustainable and abhorrent cruelty.
