VANCOUVER -- A B.C. company has been fined thousands of dollars following a guilty plea involving the illegal import of fins from a threatened species of shark.
Kiu Yick Trading Co. Ltd. was sentenced to pay a $60,000 in a B.C. court Tuesday, after representatives pleaded guilty to an unlawful import allegation.
Environment and Climate Change Canada said in a statement the business plead guilty following a three-year investigation into the company’s alleged importation of several thousand of silky sharks fins.
The dried fins, which inspectors say were imported from Hong Kong, were declared when shipped as blue shark fins, according to the ministry. Blue shark fins can be legally shipped without a permit under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), but silky shark fins cannot.
They've been listed as a threatened species since 2017, the ministry said. An export permit from Hong Kong would have been required, but was not presented, officials said.
About half of the boxes from the shipment were detained for DNA testing, and it is alleged more than 65 per cent of the samples were from the protected silky shark species, not blue shark.
The others were blue or shortfin mako sharks, both of which were legal at the time, though shortfin mako has since been added to the CITES list, the ministry said.
The permitted fins were returned to Kiu Yick, but the silky shark fin boxes were not.
According to investigators, it is estimated those 13 boxes weighing 434 kilograms (957 pounds) may contain the fins of as many as 3,185 individual sharks, making this the largest forfeiture of shark fins in Canada to date. The boxes have been forfeited to the Crown and will not be returned.
The B.C.-based company pleaded guilty to the unlawful import of a CITES-listed species without a permit, in contravention of a federal law called the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Intraprovincial Trade Act.
Kiu Yick has been fined $60,000, money which will go to the federal Environmental Damages Fund, used to support projects that benefit the environment, the ministry said.
