If you think about it, people are more worried about the price and whether a type of food is healthy before they consider environmental implications.
Actually, there are sustainable sources of caviar. There is a sturgeon caviar farm on vancouver island that uses a closed system, to name an example. Also, sturgeon is a complete catch and release fishery in BC so banning sturgeon fishing wouldnt really make a difference on the caviar market. People who are poaching sturgeon for caviar will do it regardless of the rules
That is true, but the best way to revive a species is probably to leave it alone and not fish it even if it is catch and release. Its probably not the most ethical thing to put these ancient beasts through the amount of stress of being caught, taken a picture of, and then release. Last time I checked that doesn't make them live longer, and what do we benefit from it ? A nice long fight vs a fish? A nice picture so you can post it online? I'm not sure what the concern is here? The species itself (sharks) or do people have a problem with the practice fishermen use to kill sharks?
In reality, I doubt that Vancouver will ban Shark Fin, since it would probably piss off most restaurant owners in the Vancouver/Richmond area. The economic costs of banning shark fin in Vancouver will probably be higher than the environmental "gains". If you really care about the environment, there should be more protests regarding the oil sands in Alberta, lumber industries in BC, and not to protest something that we will make very minimal impact. No offence but we have 30 million people in Canada in total, out of 30 million how many consume shark fin ? In Shanghai there is aprox, 18 million people, in Beijing another 12-15 million and those are just 2 cities.
As long as poverty is around, its hard to educate people to not harvest the sharks for their fins, because at the end of the day, its those fins that are putting food on the table. And banning it in BC, will not cut down the demand by much.