Photos of endangered sharks on sale at a fish market in South China's Hainan Province went viral over the weekend, indicating underperformance in protecting endangered species in the South China Sea.
Around 100 scalloped hammerhead sharks, an endangered species, were spotted piled up for sale at a price of 30 yuan ($4.6) per kilogram at a fish market in Sanya, Hainan on Saturday, local media Hinews reported.
"It's illegal to kill and trade hammerhead sharks without permission, as China is a signatory to CITES," Xie Yan, who served as director of the China program of the Wildlife Conservation Society from 2005 to 2014, told the Global Times Sunday.
The scalloped hammerhead shark, a commercially valuable shark species exploited extensively for its fins, was included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 2013.
"Although CITES has listed the hammerhead sharks as an endangered species, their protection may still lack legal basis in China, as sharks are not included in the list of endangered and protected species of China," said Wang Yamin, a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and an assistant professor at Shandong University.
Sharks are not the only endangered sea species that are being rampantly poached and sold in China.
In 2015, the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) warned of a rise in the poaching of wild coral, saying that it had detained 80 suspects and confiscated red coral worth over 100 million yuan since March 2014.
According to the CCG's statement, with a mature, illegal industry covering poaching, procurement, processing and sales, the price of red coral in China has been increasing by 30 percent annually over the past 10 years, while more than 140 vessels used in the red coral trade were impounded.
Ocean World, a Beijing-based magazine, said in a 2013 report on its website that more than 100,000 turtles of all species had been killed since 1959 in the South China Sea and five species in China are now facing extinction.
Environmental pollution and excessive fishing in recent years means the number of turtles in China has dropped dramatically, with fewer than 2,000 adult green turtles living in the South China Sea, news website thepaper.cn reported in March.
"Although China's Wildlife Law has clauses on illegal hunting and trading of endangered species, many frontline law enforcers are not fully aware of the issue, and can't tell the difference between protected species and ordinary sea animals," Wang said, adding that law enforcers should be better educated in the law and zoology.
Marine animal protection in China is facing big challenges due to the country's weak law enforcement capacity, Xie said.
China currently has over 300,000 power-driven fishing boats, but only some 1,000 law enforcement vessels, so it is hard to make a dent in the illegal marine wildlife trade, Wang said.
Legal issue
Despite the fact that endangered animals in Appendix II of CITES are usually listed as class II protected species in China, there is no specific law stipulating this, which may cause problems when it comes to law enforcement, Wang said.
"China's current animal protection laws are not really workable, and its compatibility with international laws still needs to be improved," Wang said.
China's current Wildlife Law is not fully fit for purpose, as it lacks clear supervision measures and effective punishments for illegal use and management of wild animals, Wang Hongju, deputy head of the Environment Protection and Resources Conservation of the National People's Congress (NPC) was quoted as saying by the Xinhua News Agency in December 2015.
A draft to amend the current Wildlife Law was submitted for its first reading at the bimonthly session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee in December 2015, marking the first amendment to the law since it came into force in 1989.