On this day in vegan history · October 7, 2011
California Bans the Sale of Shark Fins
Jerry Brown signed a bill that never touched a fishing boat. It just made the fin worthless to sell in California, and that turned out to be enough to matter.
The facts
- Signed
- October 7, 2011, by Governor Jerry Brown
- Author
- Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Mountain View), with Jared Huffman as co-author
- Vote
- Passed the Assembly 65-8 and the Senate 25-9
- Phase-in
- Ban effective January 1, 2012; restaurants allowed to sell existing stock until July 1, 2013
On October 7, 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 376, a bill by Assemblyman Paul Fong that made it a crime in California to possess, sell, trade, or distribute shark fins. The law went after demand rather than the boats doing the cutting: shark finning, where a shark is caught, its fins sliced off, and the rest of the animal dumped back into the ocean, kills tens of millions of sharks a year, and California's restaurants and markets were a real destination for those fins. The ban took effect January 1, 2012, though a companion bill gave restaurants until mid-2013 to sell through existing stock. California joined Hawaii, Washington, and Oregon in closing off a West Coast market for a trade where most of the killing happens far out of sight.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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The practice of shark finning, where a shark is caught, its fins cut off, and the carcass dumped back into the water, causes tens of millions of sharks to die each year.
From the Legislature's findings and declarations in AB 376, as chaptered October 7, 2011
Source: California Legislative Information (leginfo.ca.gov)
Why it still matters
AB 376 was one of the first US laws to attack the shark fin trade at the point of sale instead of the boat, and it gave other states and countries a working model for cutting off demand rather than chasing enforcement at sea.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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