0 the practice of cutting off sharks' fins (= the thin vertical parts sticking out from their bodies), and throwing their bodies back in the sea: --
Human activities such as shark finning are destroying these natural wonders.
Congress banned shark finning, the practice of discarding a shark's carcass at sea after slicing off its fins, to be sold and used in an expensive delicacy known as shark-fin soup.
He learned about finning when he joined the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Efforts to protect sharks have been driven in part by revulsion over finning.