Leveraging shark‐fin consumer preferences to deliver sustainable fisheries

• Published in: Conservation letters Vol. 14; no. 6
• Main Authors: Zhou, Xuehong, Booth, Hollie, Li, Mingzhe, Song, Zhifan, MacMillan, Douglas C., Zhang, Wei, Wang, Qiang, Veríssimo, Diogo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-11-2021; Wiley
• Subjects: Animal welfare; blue sharks; Commercial fishing; consumer; Consumers; Consumption; Experiments; Fins; Fisheries; Fisheries management; Fishing; Heterogeneity; International trade; market; Mobile commerce; Overfishing; Sharks; short‐fin mako; silky sharks; Species extinction; Sustainability; Sustainable fisheries; Threatened species; Wildlife conservation; China
• ISSN: 1755-263X; 1755-263X
• DOI: 10.1111/conl.12842

At least one third of sharks and their cartilaginous relatives (Class Chondrichthyes) meet the IUCN Red List Criteria for being threatened with extinction. Overfishing is the primary threat, with less than 4% of the world's shark catches managed for sustainability. The high‐value shark‐fin trade has gained the greatest attention as a conservation issue, yet there has been little research on shark‐fin consumer preferences, and how these might be leveraged to deliver sustainability goals. We used an online discrete choice experiment to explore preferences for price, quality, rarity, and finning among 2914 shark‐fin soup consumers in China. Overall, consumers prefer higher priced and rare shark‐fins, obtained without finning, yet we found three distinct groups with substantial heterogeneity between them. Our results provide evidence for the conspicuous consumption nature of shark‐fin use, but also suggest these preferences could be leveraged to incentivize responsible shark fishing. In addition, messaging for future unsustainable demand reduction should focus on shark‐finning and animal welfare as opposed species rarity and extinction.