Is sharkfin soup banned from sale anywhere in the U.S.?

Question

I was surprised to find it on a menu in Chinatown near where I live, which I consider a pretty environmentally conscious city, and kinda wonder, if it's legal here, is there ANY city or state that has successfully banned it's sale?

Answer 1

I don't think so.  I think its banned to fin Sharks in certain states though, and some are covered by the endangered species act. The good thing is msome of these places are adding fake fins to the  recipe.  It's not to save the sharks, but atleast it would help.

Answer 2

i just had some today

Answer 3

The harvesting is illegal in the US but not the consumption.

The United States recently issued a ban on finning, applicable only to U.S.-registered vessels, even in U.S. territorial waters; and shark fins cannot be imported into the USA without entire carcasses. International fishing authorities are in the process of banning shark fishing (and finning) in the Atlantic ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Finning is banned in the Eastern Pacific,[22] but shark fishing and finning continues unabated in the rest of the Pacific and Indian ocean.[14]

Hong Kong Disneyland dropped the dish from its wedding banquet menu after international pressure from environmental groups, who threatened to boycott its parks worldwide despite the high demand for the delicacy in China.[23] The University of Hong Kong has banned shark fin being served on campus.[24] 97% of respondents in the WWF Seafood Awareness survey said if fish species were threatened they would stop eating them (39%) or reduce the amount they ate (58%).[5]

NBA star Yao Ming pledged to stop eating shark fin soup at a news conference on August 2, 2006. Yao's comments were largely unreported in the Chinese media and drew a reproach from Chinese seafood industry associations.[7][25] Australian naturalist Steve Irwin was known to walk out of Chinese restaurants if he saw shark fin soup on the menu.[26] US basketball player Tracy Lamar McGrady reportedly said that he was impressed by the soup when he tried it for the first time, but was criticized by the Hong Kong branch of the WWF for his remark.[27] The Chinese-American chef, Ken Hom, sees double standards from the West, with little being done to protect stocks of cod and caviar-producing sturgeon while there is outcry over shark-finning, but he also stresses the wastefulness of harvesting only the fins.[2]