• Hunters hack the fins off live animals and toss them back into the sea
• Fins are later made into a soup that is considered a delicacy in Asia
  
• The popular broth can sell for up to £108 a bowl
• Traders dry the fins of roofs after an outcry against them using pavements
  

By Emma Reynolds

PUBLISHED: 10:19 EST, 2 January 2013 | UPDATED: 10:19 EST, 2 January 2013

These alarming pictures show 18,000 freshly sliced shark fins drying on the roof of an industrial building in Hong Kong.

Traders have taken to airing the fins on rooftops after a backlash against the old practice of scattering them on pavements.

The meat is used to make a soup that is a popular delicacy served as a status symbol by the wealthy across Asia.

Disgusted: Conservationist Sharon Kwok, director of NGO's Aquameridian & Mission Blue, stands on a roof covered in fins holding a photo of a mutilated shark

Out of sight: Traders have begun airing the fins on the of this industrial building following a public outcry over them being scattered on pavements

Cruel industry: Workers arrange the fins after they were hacked off live animal and transported to the Chinese city

Hunters hack the fins off live animals and then toss the creatures back into the ocean to drown.

Many of China's richest citizens believe the soup has medicinal benefits and serve it at celebrations.

Each fin can fetch up to £380 ($600) a pound, with a single bowl of the prized soup fetching up to £108.

But the business is causing the death of up to 100million sharks every year.

The fins were shipped from an unknown location and unloaded at a nearby pier to be dried on the rooftop.

While sales have declined in Hong Kong in recent years, activists want to see a total ban in the city, labelled by some the shark fin capital of the world.

Anger: Activists demand a total shark fin ban in the city, labelled by some as the shark fin capital of the world

Concerns: Sales of the gourmet soup - which can fetch up to £108 per bowl - have fallen in recent years because of its controversial nature

Delicacy: The fins are made into an expensive broth, which is served by wealthy households at dinner parties across Asia

The global population of sharks, who are slow-growing and slow to reproduce, has declined significantly since commercial fishing began.

Finning takes place off every the coast of every continent, particularly in poorer countries that do not have the resources to monitor and prosecute shark hunters.

Countries with anti shark finning laws include the US, Canada, Brazil, Namibia, South Africa and the European Union, while Hawaii recently outlawed the sale of the soup.

Numerous celebrities have made a stand against finning.

Last year, Gordon Ramsey called the shark trade ‘cruel’, ‘sick’, ‘tragic’, ‘barbaric’, ‘wasteful’ and ‘out of control’.

Efficient: The fins were shipped from an unknown location and unloaded at a nearby pier to be dried on the roof

The celebrity chef’s Channel 4 documentary, Shark Bait followed the sharks dying in horrific circumstances - ‘surgically ­separated’ from their fins with a machete, before being tossed back into the ocean, as the meat on the body is far less valuable.

But two weeks later the chef was accused of being a hypocrite, as footage emerged that appeared to show a bronzed Ramsey reeling in a seven-foot bull shark.

U.S. actress Bo Derek wants to ban the selling, trading or possessing of fins and said finning has created a global environmental crisis in which shark stocks could be wiped out in one generation.

Actress January Jones was recently awarded for her commitment to sharks by Oceana, and NBA star Yao Ming, the 7ft 6in Chinese mega-celebrity, swore off the expensive delicacy back in 2006.

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