Letting sharks keep their fins.

• Position: Food - Brief article

Last year, Hawaii passed a ban on the sale and possession of imported shark fins, and Oregon, Washington, and California--Pacific Coast states with sizable Chinese communities--are now considering similar bans. The goal is to curtail shark finning, a cruel practice in which the fins are hacked off a live shark, which is then left to die. (The practice is already illegal in the U.S.) But the ban on imported fins is upsetting some older Chinese. For centuries, the Chinese have marked special occasions with steamy bowls of shark fin soup. In recent years, the expensive delicacy has become more accessible to China's booming middle class, and more than 70 million...