Shark Fins Traced To Home Waters Using DNA -- A First

Workers remove the fin from a female mako shark on a beach in Santa Rosalia, Mexico, in an undated picture. For the first time, scientists have used DNA analysis to trace shark fins back to their home waters. Most of the hammerhead fins found at the market came from endangered populations in the western Atlantic, the researchers said in December 2009. Photograph by Brian J. Skerry, NGS

From National Geographic:

Many of the hammerhead sharks that are butchered to feed Asian demand for shark-fin soup start their lives in American waters, a new forensic study shows.

For the first time, scientists have used DNA from shark fins to determine where they came from. The researchers traced finds from the scalloped hammerhead shark species—collected at the world's biggest fin market in Hong Kong—back to rare populations in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans.

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