Fishermen along Bangladesh's coast are catching sharks so indiscriminately that the species is under threat, according to officials of the Department of Fisheries and researchers.

Catching sharks is banned under Bangladeshi law, yet in the past few days several sharks have been seized from fishermen in Barguna and Bhola.

Professor Saidur Rahman of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Chittagong told BBC Bangla that the fins of sharks caught by fishermen in the Bay of Bengal are cut off and sent abroad. He said the matter has reached a worrying level.

"We often see the whole fish being killed just to collect the fins, and the rest is not used," Professor Rahman said.

Md Sharif Uddin, director of the Marine Fisheries Office under the Department of Fisheries, told BBC Bangla that catching sharks and sending them abroad is illegal, and that the whole business is carried out in secret.

Professor Saidur Rahman said a kind of soup is made from shark fins in China and the countries of South-East Asia. Shark fins from Bangladesh go to China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore, he said. After a shark is caught, its fins are removed and the rest of the fish is thrown away.

"As a Muslim-majority country, people in Bangladesh do not eat shark. Besides, there is more demand abroad for shark fins," Professor Rahman said.

Source: BBC Bangla. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.