A new shark fin ban in Illinois was violated for the first time by a restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources cited Minghin Cuisine $120 for having one of the illegal fins on display in their window, the Ledger-Enquirer reported,
The fin was examined by Chicago's Field Museum, and found to be authentic.
Lee Joyce, the manager of the restaurant, said "everything is gone." He also said the fin was for display only.
Illinois was the fifth state to ban shark fins in the U.S., and the first inland area, the Huffington Post reported.
Oceana, an ocean conservation group, said Illinois actually had been importing a large number of shark fins, according to the Huffington Post. Chicago's Chinatown did serve shark fin soup in some locations before the ban was put in place.
President Obama signed the Shark Conservation Act into play last year. The act aimed to close loopholes that had been allowing some fishermen to legally fin.
"The unsustainable demand for shark fins has had a devastating impact on shark populations worldwide, and this decisive action makes it clear: Illinois Will no longer contribute to this wasteful cruelty," Kristen Strawbridge, Illinois state director for The Humane Society, said in a statement, according to the Huffington Post.
Between 63 and 273 million, sharks die every year, many of them were killed for their fins, a Florida International University press release reported
"This is a big concern because the loss of sharks can affect the wider ecosystem," Mike Heithaus, executive director of FIU's School of Environmental, Arts and Society and co-author of the paper, said, "In working with tiger sharks, we've seen that if we don't have enough of these predators around, it causes cascading changes in the ecosystem, that trickle all the way down to marine plants."
