Leveraging shark‐fin consumer preferences to deliver sustainable fisheries

Abstract

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.

Consumption of shark products: The interface of sustainability, trade (mis)labelling, human health and human rights

“…Understanding stock sustainability is a required first step to tackle this threat; however, interventions to promote sustainability and reduce overexploitation need to consider consumers and the decisions they make to change unsustainable behaviours (Zhou et al, 2021).…”

“…Overexploitation threatens many shark species worldwide. Understanding stock sustainability is a required first step to tackle this threat; however, interventions to promote sustainability and reduce overexploitation need to consider consumers and the decisions they make to change unsustainable behaviours (Zhou et al, 2021). Understanding the human dimensions of sharks is considered critical for the success of conservation and management initiatives (Simpfendorfer et al, 2011).…”

Understanding consumers to inform market interventions for Singapore's shark fin trade

“…One study in China found that consumers generally prefer higher priced and rarer shark fins, which reinforces the notion that shark fin is consumed as a luxury goods (Zhou et al, 2021). As such, fins are often sold at US$200-400 per kg, and sometimes up US$1000 per kg (Clarke, 2004;Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center, 2006).…”

“…It has been traditionally served as a signal of power in Chinese folk custom and is believed to provide tonic health benefits to consumers (Clarke et al., 2007; Dell'Apa et al., 2014; Fabinyi, 2012). This dish is usually served at important corporate or social banquets as a prestigious item believed to embody wealth, hospitality and social status; and thus reinforce relationships among people (Dell'Apa et al., 2014; Zhou et al., 2021). One study in China found that consumers generally prefer higher priced and rarer shark fins, which reinforces the notion that shark fin is consumed as a luxury goods (Zhou et al., 2021).…”

Understanding indigenous people's traditional Chinese medicinal plants harvesting preferences to guide sustainable management

“…The discrete choice experiment (DCE) is considered as a well‐established method to explore stated preference (Johnston et al, 2017), which has been widely used in consumer decision‐making trade‐offs in sustainability science (Byun et al, 2018; Natali et al, 2022; Tait et al, 2019; Zhou et al, 2021). The experiments required the respondents to compare and weigh the specific choices (or products) according to different characteristics of their attributes.…”