Author: Victor Fiorillo
Source: The Philly Post
August 17, 2012

"Earlier this week, it being Shark Week and all, a group of Pennsylvania legislators, including local state senators Larry Farnese and Daylin Leach, introduced Senate Bill No. 1578, which calls for a ban on the possession, trade, distribution or sale of “the raw, dried or otherwise processed detached fin or the raw, dried or otherwise processed detached tail of an elasmobranch,” the fancy name for the animal grouping that includes sharks.

Farnese says that the ban is imperative because of the controversial process of finning, a practice banned in the United States and many other nations. In finning, a fisherman in search of prized shark fins, which can fetch many thousands of dollars depending on the size and type, slices the fin off of a living shark and throws the finless animal back in the water to die. No one wants the shark’s meat, because that’s worth drastically less than the fin.

“While finning is illegal under federal law, possession of the fins is not,” explains Farnese. “This is an effort to close that loophole. Plus, finning is just cruel.”"

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