I was recently on a shark dive in the Gulf of Maine, of all places, about 40 miles off the coast. The captain located warm eddies spinning off from the distant Gulf Stream and we started chumming. The day was bright and the seas almost glassy - you could see anything that might break the water's surface a long ways off the boat. Excited, we divers kept our gear close by as the crew lowered the cage into the water...
6 hours later not even a dogfish had showed up. Disgusted, the captain informed us that a few years ago, a bad day was when they only had a couple of large blues and at least one mako circling the cage and slurping up rotten fish guts. He was planning on canceling the shark dives in favor of inshore ledge diving - at least the lobsters were still around.

A few weeks later I talked with a dive boat operator in Montauk who runs shark dives near Block Island as well as directly in the Gulf Stream. He told me a similar story and said that he, too, was going to stop the shark expeditions, as he was sick of disappointing his customers.

The sharks are being fished out of the waters of the northeast, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. The trade in sharks' fins is immense, to feed a huge Asian appetite, and you can bet that those fishermen don't just toss the big jaws overboard. In any case, between fins and trophies, the sharks are indeed headed toward extinction. These large fish need years to sexually mature, so killing a few has a disproportionate impact on the whole population.
Anyone bidding for shark jaws needs to be honest with themselves and understand that they are directly contributing to the demise of these animals. Ask yourself before you bid: do you really need to have that trophy on your wall? Can you justify helping with extinction? Each bid and each successful buy adds glamor for someone else to follow suit. You're creating a demand and a market with your actions. If you love ocean life enough to find these jaws beautiful and awesome then don't bid!