Prized in Far Eastern cuisines, the Whale Shark and its smaller cousin the Basking Shark have been hunted so thoroughly in recent years that a U.N. meeting in Chile is considering protecting them from humans.

The U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting until Nov. 15 will decide whether to tighten trade in the two shark species until scientists can find out if they are endangered or not.

"They are the world's largest fish but there's not a lot we know about them," Britain's animal health minister, Elliot Morley, told Reuters last week.

Britain is sponsoring a European Union motion to protect the Basking Shark, found in temperate and cold waters. India and the Philippines have put forward a similar proposal on the Whale Shark, which inhabits warmer seas.

No exact figures are available for the populations of either fish. The Basking Shark is an elusive creature which appears for only a few months a year in coastal areas.

"It is a species which has declined in relation to sightings and it has become a cause for concern in European Union waters," Morley said.

SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

The Whale Shark can grown up to 60 feet (20 meters) in length and can migrate as far as 13,000 miles (20,000 km) at a time but it is a gentle giant.

"They are so docile you can go swimming with them," said Sarah Tyack of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Taiwan is the biggest market for Whale Shark meat and fins. Basking Shark fins are popular in China where they are used in shark's fin soup or as expensive trophies worth several thousand U.S. dollars.

Conservationists say people kill 100 million sharks and rays a year. About half of the shark deaths are caused when the animals become caught up in industrial fishing nets.

Smaller sharks are the target of "finning", a brutal practice now banned on fishing boats in U.S. waters.

"Basically they pull a shark in, they'll pin it down, cut it's fin off and throw it back into the sea where it will drown slowly. It can't move," said Tyack.

"This is driven by demand in the Far East for shark fin's soup," she said.

Japan and Norway oppose the proposals at the U.N. meeting in fear that they might lead to other restrictions on commercially important fish like tuna.