Many shark species are threatened by overfishing, including the 
filter-feeding whale shark Rhincodon typus. The Ocean Conservancy reports “many sharks fall victim to finning, the process of slicing off a shark’s fins and tossing it back into the water. Highly prized for use in the delicacy shark fin soup, shark fins support a very lucrative market. Although the U.S. Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000 made this practice illegal in all U.S. waters, finning remains legal 
in most parts of the world.” In The USA regulations prohibit possession of any part of protected species, but how to identify dried fins? The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration recently confiscated a ton of dried shark fins and brought charges against dealers based on DNA identification of protected shark species. A DNA barcode library together with rapid, portable methods for sequence analysis will empower enforcement of regulations for many protected species.