Attend a few wedding banquets in Hong Kong and you will find that they are very similar. Guests sit around large round tables to drink, chat and chew for the duration of eight to ten courses, each dish predictable: roast suckling pig, whole steamed fish, crispy skin chicken. And the most important course, or perhaps the most defining one, is the shark fin soup.

Its presence says this is a real banquet, at least to the Chinese. Based on the quality of this dish, which accounts for nearly half of the meal’s total food cost, discerning diners can judge whether the family skimped or splurged on their guests.

Ironically, shark fin in itself is tasteless; it is only when combined with the other ingredients that the soup has flavour. The delicacy is mostly enjoyed for its slippery, gelatinous texture. After soaking, the cartilage becomes soft, transparent and noodle-like in appearance. This prized food is then prepared with stock soup of varying ingredients, such as dried scallops, fine dried ham and chicken. The result is bowls of thick, savoury soup, each served with a small piece of shark fin.

Originally enjoyed only by Chinese royalty in past centuries, shark fin soup has come to signify wealth. This status symbol is usually reserved for special occasions, devoured en masse by wedding guests but also served at important birthday banquets and business dinners to impress.

While expensive, shark fin has no shortage of fans, especially in mainland China and Hong Kong. In the large dried seafood market in Sheung Wan, fibrous dried fins neatly line shop shelves and hang from ceilings. Some larger ones are displayed behind glass cases and adorned with red ribbons, ready to be given as gifts.

But what would actor Jackie Chan do if offered such a gift? Politely decline, perhaps. He and other celebrities, including mainland basketball star Yao Ming, have sworn off the dish.

Footage of live sharks having their fins hacked off by fishermen onboard a boat, only to be thrown back into the water to drown, offers a graphic image of cruelty. But the brutality and wastefulness of this practice of “finning”, which is illegal in many countries, is nonetheless not the most pressing concern. The greater problem is simply that of overfishing.

Aggressively taking sharks out of the water for food has led to an alarming decline in certain shark populations. Three species are considered endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and several more are expected to be added to the list in March.

While many cultures eat shark meat, the popularity of shark fin soup is the “main driver” for the high demand for sharks right now, according to WWF Hong Kong’s head of marine programme Guillermo Moreno. Shark meat is eaten all over the world, especially in Europe, the US and South America, but “most of the shark fisheries worldwide right now are targeting shark fin, because it is the most expensive part of the shark,” he says.

Caring about shark survival goes deeper than sentimentality. Wiping out shark populations means losing a food source in the long run. There is also a concern that the demise of these top predators will have catastrophic consequences for marine ecosystems.

The goal of WWF is to implement sustainable fisheries for sharks, which takes time. “The idea is not to stop shark fishing forever. It is to stop shark fishing until shark populations recover. Once we have recovered populations, we can have proper fishery management in place so we know exactly how many fish we can take out of the sea, so there is a possibility for generations to enjoy these resources,” Moreno says.

For now, changing attitudes is a central yet challenging part of the equation – sustainability is a hard sell to traditionalists, as well as businesses that sell hundreds of bowls of shark fin soup per wedding. One solution is to persuade restaurants and consumers to replace the delicacy with other pricey but sustainable food items that also represent status to the Chinese, such as abalone or scallops. But it is an uphill battle as restaurants often push their clients to include shark fin soup on banquet menus, as Moreno has found.

More and more shark fin is being consumed in mainland China as the country grows in wealth. But in Hong Kong, as people have become aware of the conservation issues, shark fin consumption has in fact decreased. The good news for the conscientious is that there are plenty of sustainable and tasty alternatives: WWF’s list of recommended seafood for Hong Kong consumers includes Alaskan salmon, black cod from North America and rock lobster from Australia.