The EU has announced plans to ban the trade in loose shark fins, in order to tackle fishing practices threatening to wipe out one third of the species. 

The move comes after more than a million European citizens put their names to a petition calling on the bloc to help "stop finning" around the globe. 

Finning – the practice of cutting off a shark's fin on board a boat and throwing the shark back live into the water – is illegal in the European Union. But the fins can still be harvested legally upon landing. Activists say the European Union remains among the biggest exporters of fins and a major transit hub for the global fin trade. 

The European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, said it will "now examine the opportunity of taking a legislative measure to end trade in loose shark fins."

Brussels says EU vessels reported that they caught some 83,000 tonnes of shark per year between 2019 and 2021. The bloc exports on average 2,300 tonnes of frozen shark fins a year, generating sales of $185 million, it said. 

In some customs shark fin soup is believed to have medicinal and aphrodisiac properties, though studies have not confirmed the claims.

The EU said that despite efforts to improve conservation "over one third of shark species are threatened with extinction."

"Shark finning is one of the main threats for the conservation of these species," it said.

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