Seeking Fins Above Water

While sharks are occasionally spotted on city beaches, you’d be harder pressed to find any on Bayside menus.

Patch was spurred on a search for a controversial dish known as Shark Fin Soup, after reading that, the world-over, lawmakers are seeking to ban the dish.

The soup’s base ingredient—an actual fin from the toothy sea creature—is often culled from live sharks.

An act that a recent report by the WildAid organization summarized as “bleeding the ocean dry,” finners throw back the still-alive sharks, after carving off their fins.

Once dropped back into the sea, they are unable to swim, and therefore can’t move water through their gills to take in oxygen, according to Shark Savers, an organization dedicated to shark conservation. The animals die a painful death through loss of blood, suffocation, or by falling as easy prey to other animals.

“The demand for Shark Fin Soup in Asia and communities throughout the world is a major driver of unsustainable, virtually unrestrained killing of sharks,” said Paul Donnelly, a Shark Savers spokesman.

Associated with status, wealth and health in China and other Asian communities, Shark Fin Soup has been popularized at weddings, banquets and business diners, according to Donnelly.

Up to 73 million sharks are being killed a year, leading to a startling 90 percent decline in the world’s shark population, according to The New York Times.

Restaurants in Bayside are not likely responsible for even a fraction of those figures.

“I’ve never heard of that” was the response from behind the counter, when asked if the establishment served the dish. It is legal for consumption in New York, according to the State’s Department of Agriculture &Markets.

The staff at also professed to be unaware of the dish. Likewise at Chopstick, a new Chinese-Japanese restaurant, located at 4330 Corporal Kennedy St.

“Through our experience, we have found shark fin soup to be familiar to most in the Chinese community however, we cannot comment on specific restauranteurs,” said Donnelly.

, and also said they don’t serve shark fin.

“I don't even know how to make Shark Fin Soup,” said a man who identified himself only as “Billy,” at . He said he wouldn’t sell it even if he did.

“You might find shark in Richmond Hill,” said Parasram Dirpaul, before being served a relatively less controversial protein—chicken—at Chopstick.

Fried shark is popular in Guyana, where Dirpaul is originally from, he said.

He recalls seeing shark fins being removed and dried for export in Guyana— but the animals were already dead, and not thrown back into the ocean.

A shark-friendly, a mock version of Shark Fin Soup can be found in kosher-vegetarian restaurant, Buddha Bodai, located at 4296 Main Street in Flushing.