Yao Ming Is On A Mission To Stop People Killing Sharks For Soup

In case you're wondering what Yao Ming has been doing with his life since retiring from the NBA, we finally have the answer.

The former Houston Rockets big man has been fighting tooth and nail to save sharks.

See, in Yao's native China, shark fin soup was being devoured so ferociously, the world's shark population was paying a deadly price.

According to WildAid,

An estimated 100 million sharks are killed every year with fins from up to 73 million [of them] used for shark fin soup, primarily to supply the market in Mainland China. A pair of shark fins can sell for as much as US $700 per [kilogram] in Asia. Some shark populations have declined by up to 98 percent in the last 15 years and nearly one third of pelagic sharks species are considered threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

WildAid and Yao have partnered to promote awareness of this issue and stop the killing of sharks for soup.

Since the creation of the slogan "When the buying stops, the killing can too," shark killings for fins are actually down 50 percent.

And thanks to the campaign, a reported 91 percent of the Chinese population is in favor of banning the shark fin trade altogether.

Yao Ming and WildAid should definitely get Katy Perry on board with this movement.

Citations: Thanks to Yao Ming, killing sharks for their fins is down 50%. And he's just getting started. (Upworthy)