Before you order the shark fin soup...

Shark fin soup was once a delicacy only served for Chinese aristocrats but it has gotten a lot more affordable these days. Apparently the fin does not have any taste, but people eat it for its texture, tradition and probably for curiosity.

It is illegal to harvest sharks for just fins in some countries, but this is seldom monitored and the number of sharks are declining rapidly. Before you order that soup for whatever reason, consider the horrific act of "finning" sharks which involves capturing sharks by mile-long net, cutting just the fins and throwing the bodies back in the sea to make more room on the boat while the finless sharks swim to the bottom of the sea and die, unable to swim.
Millions of sharks die this way each year and it's not just their problems because they play such vital roles in sustaining the marine ecosystem. And messing with the delicate balance affects our life negatively as well.

And if you are not convinced about the malpractice or the negative environmental effect, then avoid it for your health. According to University of Hong Kong study, shark fins contains more than 10 times the maximum permitted level of mercury. If demand declines, the price would drop and harvesters will have less incentives to mal-practice and sharks might have the chance of surviving this battle. If this continues, they will perish.

And if you have a bad experience with a shark and think ill of them, I'd urge you to think about this stat: every year, about 10 people are killed by shark attacks around the world but 200 million sharks are slaughtered by humans.

CNN's Planet in Peril recently featured shark finning.
Stop Shark Finning site has more details.