‘Cruel, Wasteful’: How Dakar’s Port Has Become a Hotspot for Illegal Shark Fins

When you picture the busy docks of Dakar, you might think of tuna, sardines or the clatter of cargo containers. What many don’t expect is the silent, gruesome trade in shark fins that passes through the same steel‑clad gates. A recent study by the London‑based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) shines a light on this hidden horror.

Imagine a long‑range tuna vessel, flying a Chinese flag, cruising the Atlantic with lines stretching for kilometres. The crew spots a shark, a living, breathing predator that happens to be in the way of their catch. In a split‑second, they slice off its prized dorsal fin, toss the mutilated animal back overboard and watch it flounder, often dying a slow, suffocating death. Those fins, now gleaming like trophies, are hauled ashore at Dakar’s port and bundled for export to Asian markets where they fetch a fortune as ingredients for shark‑fin soup or as components of traditional medicine.

The practice – known as shark finning – is technically illegal in most jurisdictions, and a number of international conventions explicitly forbid it. Yet the EJF report, released on July 19, 2026, documents dozens of Chinese and Taiwanese long‑line vessels landing these prohibited fins in Dakar over the past few years. The port’s sheer volume of traffic, combined with lax enforcement, makes it an attractive waypoint for traffickers looking to mask the origin of their contraband.

It’s not just a moral outrage; it’s a conservation disaster. A 2022 study published in Nature warned that shark and ray populations have collapsed by roughly 71 % since 1970, largely because of industrial fishing and finning. Sharks are apex predators, and their disappearance ripples through marine ecosystems, destabilising food webs and reducing ocean health. Conservationists liken finning to hunting rhinos solely for their horns – a wasteful, needless slaughter for profit.

What makes the situation even more troubling is the way finning intertwines with other illegal activities. The same vessels often engage in unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing, dumping unwanted by‑catch, and, according to some watchdogs, violating basic crew‑rights. In other words, the shark‑fin trade is a symptom of a broader breakdown in maritime governance.

Why Dakar? Its strategic location on West Africa’s Atlantic coast turns it into a natural gateway between the high seas and Asian markets. The port’s administrative machinery, stretched thin and sometimes riddled with corruption, struggles to verify the provenance of each load. As a result, a handful of ships can off‑load hundreds of kilograms of fins with minimal scrutiny.

Local NGOs are sounding the alarm, urging Senegalese authorities to tighten inspections, adopt electronic tracking of catches, and cooperate with international bodies to patrol the high seas. Some suggestions include mandatory photographic evidence of each catch, on‑board observers, and harsher penalties for vessels caught finning.

For now, the fins continue to line the tarps outside Dakar’s markets, awaiting their next voyage across the Indian Ocean. Until enforcement catches up and demand in consumer countries wanes, the oceans will keep losing these ancient sentinels, one sliced fin at a time.