South Korean hotels are not heeding international calls to ban shark fin dishes on their menus that may cause local animal rights groups to stage a boycott, sources said Tuesday.

The country’s top-rated hotels including the Lotte, Shilla, Westin Chosun, Sheraton Walker Hill and Plaza all serve the delicacy at their respective Chinese restaurants, a source in the hotel industry said.

He said the ingredients are all imported from Hong Kong with some non-soup dishes costing up to 100,000 won ($90) per serving.

The continued sale of shark fin dishes and soups, however, has caused such organizations as the Korea Association for Animal Protection (KAAP) to consider organizing moves to censure domestic luxury hotels.

“Shark fin dishes are the result of unimaginable cruelty to fish that must be stopped,” a KAAP spokesperson said. He warned that if hotels do not discontinue the serving of shark fin dishes, it will work with other animal rights groups to call for a nationwide boycott.

Shark fins are processed by removing the fins from a live fish that is then thrown back into the sea to die slowly and painfully.

Reflecting this, some U.S. states and the European Union have banned collecting, selling and serving shark fins with some international hotel chains, taking steps to alter their menus.

The Hong Kong-based Peninsula Hotel Group and the Shangri-La Hotel and Resort chain said they have discontinued serving shark fin dishes.

(Yonhap News)