Shark fin soup ban mulled in Toronto

TORONTO, June 14 (UPI) -- A Chinese-Canadian city councilor in Toronto is leading a move to ban restaurants from serving shark fins in soup and other dishes.

Councilor Kristyn Wong-Tam said while she grew up eating shark fin soup, considered a delicacy, she stopped about 10 years ago as she came to consider it unethical, the Toronto Star reported Tuesday.

"We are not going to bring up a fish -- a shark that's 150 pounds -- from the ocean, cut off the fins and throw the rest of it back" to helplessly die or be killed, she told a news conference.

Councilor Glenn De Baeremaeker is backing the move, saying he has begun a citywide petition with a goal of 10,000 signatures before council brings up the issue in the fall, the Toronto Sun said.

He called the finning "just simply a cruel, wasteful, barbaric, inhumane and evil practice" and quoted experts who estimate as many as 70 million sharks are killed each year for their fins.

South Asians and Chinese make up about a third of the Greater Toronto Area's 5.5 million people, 2006 census figures indicate.