Retired Chinese NBA star Yao Ming and British tycoon Richard Branson are urging the Chinese to give up eating shark fins for the sake of preserving the endangered great fish.

Speaking before a group of 30 top businessmen, Yao and Branson lectured that finning sharks is the primary culprit for the alarming decline of shark species. Records show more than 70 million sharks are caught annually, or 1.5 million sharks a week.

As income levels have surged in China in the past decade, the demand for shark fin soup has soared as well in Chinese communities around the world. Shark fin soup is a delicacy essential to traditional banquets, and Chinese account for 95 percent of consumers of sharks' fins.

In March 2011, a deputy to the National People's Congress, Ding Liguo, proposed a ban on trading in shark fins. But even after the law's passage, sales kept rising.

The decline of the shark population has the potential to dramatically change ocean ecosystems, according to marine biology experts. The group WildAid has been campaigning to save sharks and has gotten celebrities to take part in preservation efforts.