Shark fins

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
WildAid, one of the newest international wildlife protection groups, announced on July 3 that 70% of a sample of shark fins it bought in Bangkok during May 2001 contained mercury, and one fin had 42 times the recommended limit for human consumption. “Sales of shark fin soup in Bangkok’s Chinatown plunged 70%” within the next week, Associated Press reported. Anchalee Kongrut of the Bangkok Post on July 14 said that “Restaurants selling shark fin soup lost up to 40% of their income,” despite Thai government and restaurant industry claims that their own tests of shark fins found no significant mercury content.

WildAid was formed in late 1999 by Suwanna Gauntlet of the San Francisco-based Barbara Delano Foundation, in whose honor the Suwanna Ranch sanctuary operated by the Humane Farming Association is named; Steven Galster of the Global Survival Network; Environmental Investigation Agency cofounder Peter Knights; and Steve Trent, who also in 1999 started the Environmental Justice Foundation. WildAid has offices in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Thailand, Cambodia, and Russia.