100,000,000 Sharks

While some sharks are allowed to be caught, illegal shark finning occurs when fisherman cut the fins off live sharks and dump their bodies into the open ocean to avoid declaring the full animal at port and surpassing fishing quotas.

Dalhousie Biologist Boris Worm, the study’s lead researcher on the case states, “There’s a staggering number of sharks being caught ever year and the number is way too high considering the biology of species.”

100 million sharks was actually a conservative estimate. Worm’s team found the number could be as high as 273 million sharks killed each year due to the incentive of the shark fin trade alone.