Sharks
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106TH CONGRESS
“2d Session
REPORT 106-650
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SHARK FINNING PROHIBITION ACT
JUNE 6, 2000 —
Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union and ordered to be printed
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska, from the Committee on Resources, submitted the following:
REPORT
[To accompany H.R. 3535]
[Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]
The Committee on Resources, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 3535) to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to eliminate the wasteful and unsportsmanlike practice of shark finning, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with an amendment and recommend that the bill as amended do pass.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert in lieu thereof the following: SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Shark Finning Prohibition Act”.
SEC. 2. PURPOSE.
The purpose of this Act is to eliminate the wasteful and unsportsmanlike practice of shark finning and to reduce the high mortality levels associated with shark finning in waters of the United States.
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON REMOVING SHARK FIN AND DISCARDING SHARK CARCASS AT SEA
Section 307 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (16 U.S.C. 1857) is amended —
(1) in subparagraph (N) by striking “or” after the semicolon at the end;
(2) in subparagraph (0) by striking the period and inserting “; or”; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
“(P)(i) to remove any of the fins of a shark (including the tail) and discard the carcass of the shark at sea; “
(ii) to have custody, control, or possession of any such fin aboard a fishing vessel without the corresponding carcass; or
“(iii) to land any such fin without the corresponding carcass;”
PURPOSE OF THE BILL
The purpose of H.R. 3535 is to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to eliminate the wasteful and unsportsmanlike practice of shark finning.
BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR LEGISLATION
Sharks are harvested in many parts of the world in directed fisheries; however, in the United States waters, they are primarily caught as bycatch in pelagic longline fisheries such as the sword- fish and tuna fisheries. In some fisheries, the shark is landed and both the flesh of the shark and the fins are sold for food purposes. In fisheries where the shark’s fin is the primary product from the animal, the fins are removed at sea and are dried before they are landed.
Shark finning is currently prohibited in fisheries of the United States in waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea; however, the practice is not illegal in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Shark finning is a practice where the fins of a shark are removed and retained while a portion or all of the carcass is then discarded back into the ocean.
The fins of sharks are the primary ingredient in shark-fin soup. The increasing popularity of shark-fin soup in Asia has increased the practice of shark finning in Hawaii. In fact, in 1991, the percentage of sharks retained by the longline fisheries for finning was approximately 3 percent. By 1998, that percentage had grown to 60 percent. Between 1991 and 1998, the number of sharks retained by the Hawaii-based swordfish and tuna longline fishery had increased from 2,289 to 60,857 annually, and by 1998, it is estimated that over 98 percent of these sharks were killed for their fins. While the Hawaiian longline fleet produces between 66,000-88,000 pounds of shark fins per year, this amount represents approximately one percent of the worldwide production of shark fins.
Blue sharks
The blue shark is one of the most common and widely distributed pelagic sharks of all the shark species and they are highly migratory. They are found throughout the tropical, sub-tropical and temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea.
While most shark species have slow growth rates, mature late and produce small litters, blue sharks are one of the most prolific sharks. The litter size of blue sharks varies with the average litter consisting of between 20 and 40 pups; however, some litter sizes have reached as many as 135 pups. While the blue shark matures faster and produces more offspring than other sharks, sharks in general do not produce offspring at the replacement rates of most fish species.
The blue shark is the primary shark affected by finning in the Western Pacific Ocean. The sharks are caught as a bycatch in the longline fisheries, which primarily target tuna and swordfish. The fins of sharks only account for one to five percent of the total body weight, which results in 95 to 99 percent of the carcass being wasted. Of the approximately 100,000 sharks that are caught off Hawaii, 90 to 95 percent of these sharks are blue sharks.
The population of blue sharks is unknown in the Pacific Ocean; however, the Honolulu Laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service is working on a comprehensive stock assessment of blue sharks that is expected to be completed in May of 2000. The last stock assessment of blue sharks was completed in 1991 and at that time the stock in the North Pacific was estimated to range between 52 million and 67 million animals.
Federal fiheries conservation and management and Hawaii State law
Fisheries in United States waters are primarily managed through federal legislation known as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (the Magnuson-Stevens Act). The Magnuson-Stevens Act delegates management of fishery resources in the Pacific Ocean seaward of the States of Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the insular areas of the United States in the Pacific Ocean area to the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council. Fishery
The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that fishery management plans must be consistent with the national standards for fishery conservation and management. Included in these national standards is a requirement that “Conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, (A) minimize bycatch and (B) to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the mortality of such bycatch.” Since the primary source of shark fins is as a result of bycatch in longline fisheries, the increased retention and increased mortality of sharks has caused concern among fisheries managers and conservation organizations.
While the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has been debating the issue of shark finning and whether to create a fishery management plan for a directed shark fishery, the National Marine Fisheries Service has written to the Council on several occasions urging the Council to address the issue of finning immediately.
Following the hearing on a resolution which condemned the practice of shark finning as wasteful and unsportsmanlike (H. Con. Res. 189), the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council at its February/March meeting took action to restrict the longline fleet to one shark per trip limit for all non-blue shark species, to require that all non-blue sharks be landed whole, and to cap the blue shark quota at 50,000 animals per year. In May, the Council passed additional measures under the pelagic management plan, which includes coastal sharks, that bans demersal longline gear.
In addition, the State of Hawaii passed legislation that is awaiting signature by the Governor which would prohibit the harvest of shark fins in territorial waters of the State or the landing of shark fins unless the shark is landed whole. Penalties in the bill include: seizure and forfeiture of shark fins, commercial marine licenses, vessel and fishing equipment; and an administrative fine of not less than $5,000 and not more than $15,000. Changes have been made to the Hawaii longline trip report forms requiring fishermen to report shark fins sold to dealers.
COMMITTEE ACTION
H.R. 3535 was introduced on January 27, 2000, by Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA). The bill was referred to the Committee on Resources, and within the Committee to the Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans. On April 13, 2000, the Subcommittee held a hearing on the bill, where testimony was heard from the Honorable Randy “Duke” Cunningham, U.S. House of Representatives; Ms. Penelope Dalton, Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service; Mr. James D. Cook, Chairman, Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council; Mr. Frederick M. O’Regan, President, International Fund For Animal Welfare; and Mr. William Aila, Harbor Master, Waianae Small Boat Harbor.
On May 18, 2000, the Subcommittee met to mark up the bill. Congressman Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS) offered an amendment to prohibit the removal of any shark fins and discarding the carcass at sea and the custody, control, possession or landing of shark fins without the corresponding carcass. The amendment was adopted by voice vote. The bill, as amended, was then ordered favorably reported to the Full Committee by voice vote. On May 24, 2000, the Full Resources Committee met to consider the bill. There were no further amendments and the bill was ordered favorably reported to the House of Representatives by voice vote.
COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Regarding clause 2(b)(1) of rule X and clause 3(c)(1) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Resources’ oversight findings and recommendations are reflected in the body of this report.
CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY STATEMENT
Article I, section 8 of the Constitution of the United States grants Congress the authority to enact this bill.
COMPLIANCE WITH HOUSE RULE XIII
1. Cost of Legislation. Clause 3(d)(2) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives requires an estimate and a comparison by the Committee of the costs which would be incurred in carrying out this bill. However, clause 3(d)(3)(B) of that rule provides that this requirement does not apply when the Committee has included in its report a timely submitted cost estimate of the bill prepared by the Director of the Congressional Budget Office under section 402 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
2. Congressional Budget Act. As required by clause 3(c)(2) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives and section 308(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, this bill does not contain any new budget authority, spending authority, credit authority, or an increase or decrease in tax expenditures. The bill would increase revenues by a “negligible amount.”
3. Government Reform Oversight Findings. Under clause 3(c)(4) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, the Com- mittee has received no report of oversight findins and rec-ommendations from the Committee on Government Reform on this bill. 4. Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate. Under clause 3(c)(3) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives and section 403 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the Committee has received the following cost estimate for this bill from the Director of the Congressional Budget Office:
U.S. CONGRESS,
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE,
Washington, DC, June 6, 2000.
Hon. DON YOUNG,
Chairman, Committee on Resources,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: The Congressional Budget Office has prepared the enclosed cost estimate for H.R. 3535, the Shark Finning Prohibition Act.
If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contacts are Deborah Reis (for federal costs), and Natalie Tawil (for the private-sector impact).
Sincerely,
BARRY B. ANDERSON
(For Dan L. Crippen, Director).
Enclosure.
H.R. 3535 — Shark Finning Prohibition Act
H.R. 3535 would make it unlawful to remove any of the fins of a shark and then discard the carcass of the fish at sea. Persons who violate this prohibition would be liable for a civil penalty. CBO expects that this new penalty would increase federal revenues, but by a negligible amount. Because the bill would affect governmental receipts, pay-as-you-go procedures would apply.
H.R. 3535 contains no intergovernmental mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and would impose no significant costs on state, local, or tribal governments. The bill would impose new private-sector mandates, but CBO estimate that the total direct costs of the mandates would fall well below the annual threshold established in UMRA ($109 million in 2000, adjusted annually for inflation) in any of the first five years that the mandates are in effect.
Under current law, shark finning is banned in the U.S. waters of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, but not in the Central and Western Pacific. H.R. 3535 would impose new federal mandates on the private sector by making it illegal to remove any of the fins of a shark (including the tail) and discard the carcass of the shark at sea, and to bring fins to port without the corresponding carcass. H.R. 3535 also would impose a new mandate on the private sector by effectively prohibiting the transshipment of fins — the transfer of fins from foreign vessels outside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone to U.S.-based vessels for export from the United States or the landing of fins by foreign vessels in U.S. ports.
According to estimates by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the total value of shark fins harvested by fishermen on U.S. vessels and landed in the Central and Western Pacific (Hawaii, Guam, and American Samoa) in 1998 was about $1.4 million. The National Marine Fisheries Service also estimates that the total value of shark fins transshipped through Hawaii, Guam, and American Samoa did not exceed $3.9 million at the point of first sales transactions in 1998. The value to the U.S. private sector of those transshipments is substantially less than that initial sales value of the transshipped fins. Thus, CBO estimates that the total direct costs of the mandates, measured as lost net income, would fall well below the annual threshold established in UMRA ($109 million in 2000, adjusted annually for inflation) in any of the first five years that the mandates are in effect.
The CBO staff contacts for this estimate are Deborah Reis (for federal costs), and Natalie Tawil (for the private-sector impact). The estimate was approved by Peter H. Fontaine, Deputy Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.
COMPLIANCE WITH PUBLIC LAW 104-4
This bill contains no unfunded mandates.
PREEMPTION OF STATE, LOCAL OR TRIBAL LAW
This bill is not intended to preempt any State, local or tribal law.
CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW MADE BY THE BILL, AS REPORTED
In compliance with clause 3(e) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, changes in existing law made by the bill, as reported, are shown as follows (existing law proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black brackets, new matter is printed in italic, existing law in which no change is proposed is shown in roman):
SECTION 307 OF THE MAGNUSON-STEVENS FISHERY
CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT ACT
SEC. 307. PROHIBITED ACTS.
It is unlawful —
(1) for any person —
(A) ***
* * * * * * * *
(N) to strip pollock of its roe and discard the flesh of the pollock; [or]
(O) to knowingly and willfully fail to disclose, or to falsely disclose, any financial interest as required under section 302(j), or to knowingly vote on a Council decision in violation of section 302(j)(7)(A)[.]; or
(P)(i) to remove any of the fins of a shark (including the tail) and discard the carcass of the shark at sea;
(ii) to have custody, control, or possession of any such fin aboard a fishing vessel without the corresponding carcass; or (iii) to land any such fin without the corresponding carcass; or
(iii) to land any such find without the corresponding carcass
* * * * * * * *
Shark Finning Prohibition Act: Report (to accompany H.R. 3535); Including Cost Estimate of the Congressional Budget Office (Washington, DC: U.S.G.P.O, 2000).
See: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pur1.32754069794984&seq=1
Guide to Commercial Shark Fishing in the Caribbean Area
Anglo-American Caribbean Commission
INTRODUCTION
Attention has been drawn frequently to the fact that the Caribbean area is largely dependent on imports for one of its chief sources of first class protein, fish. The Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, therefore, has from the very start taken a deep interest in encouraging the development of local fisheries. Among the plans formulated, the commercial possibilities of shark fishing occupy an important place. The first West Indian Conference at Barbados in March, 1944, emphasized that the possibilities of shark fishing in the Caribbean area had not been fully explored, and recommended that accurate information on this subject should be collected and distributed. This pamphlet attempts to set out, for the benefit of the people and fishermen of the Caribbean, the best available information on sharks — their varieties, location, by-products, commercial and nutritional value, and the methods of catching, processing and marketing. them.After having looked over the Caribbean carefully, we believe that there are many places in this area where people can make money fishing for sharks. Practically every part of a shark has a value. For instance, the hide produces good leather; the liver produces oil often rich in Vitamin A, while the fins of all except the nurse shark bring a high price for soup making; the white meat, either fresh or salted, of most kinds of sharks, is a wholesome human food and the rest of the meat can be converted into animal feed and fertilizer. Good prices can be obtained for all these products, and it is therefore surprising that, with the exception of Cuba, commercial shark fishing hardly exists in the Caribbean.
There are two main reasons why shark fishing has not progressed in the Caribbean. In the first place, unless shark products are handled on the correct lines, the profit is very disappointing. In the second place, most of the fishermen who can enter into this trade cannot wait for their money; and because of poor products, with correspondingly low returns, coupled with lack of available information as to how to do better, local capital has not been available to finance fishermen. This pamphlet aims at removing these difficulties.
To make money out of shark fishing the first thing is to “know how”. Different sharks have different values for their various products and even the same kind of shark will vary according to whether it is male or female and according to the time of the year. It is therefore important for you to know what sort of shark you are dealing with and what kinds of sharks are likely to be in your locality, and when and where they can be caught. You can obtain part of this information from Section 1. In Section 2 are outlined some methods for catching sharks which we think will work in the Caribbean. These ideas are not based on theory but on practical, successful experience in the Caribbean area. In the following sections you are told how to handle the various shark products. This is all the “know how” of commercial shark fishing.
But “know how” is not enough. If you are to make a success of shark fishing you must follow the instructions carefully. Remember that shark products spoil more easily than most animal products and you are working in a hot, humid climate where this spoilage is very rapid. Shark livers begin to deteriorate almost as soon as the shark is dead; hides may lose half their value if skinning is delayed for more than six hours; flesh begins to spoil in a few hours. Never leave sharks or shark products (except fins) in the hot sun. Start preparing the products as soon as the shark is killed and go straight through with the preparation as described in these notes. Keep everything clean and washed down. Where salt is used, use only a good grade salt, free from pink tint and use plenty of it. If you follow these instructions you will produce valuable products. If you do not, you will produce worthless products which will not even pay your freight charges.
Often those who catch the sharks are too tired to start preparing the products immediately. It would therefore be well to consider the possibility of having a separate working gang, fresh and ready to begin operations as soon as the sharks are brought in port.
The final aim should be to use every part of the shark. At the beginning, however, prepare only two products. When you have two processes going smoothly, then you may include others.
In most places sharks are rather seasonal, being common at some times and not at others. Different sharks have different seasons. For this reason you may find that you can fish sharks profitably at only one time of the year and have to combine this with other types of fishing.
At the present time you will find freight rates high and shipping difficult. On the other hand war conditions have so increased the value of many shark products that their present value more than outbalances the increased cost and difficulty of shipping. Some of these products, particularly Vitamin A, are urgently needed war materials. By actively carrying on shark fishing along the proper lines you will not only be making money for yourself, but you will be assisting in the war effort.
This report does not pretend to be a scientific work nor is it intended to be a theoretical discussion. It aims at but one purpose, namely, to tell you how you can best make shark fishing profitable to yourself.
The Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, March 1945
SECTION IV
SHARK HIDES — HOW TO HANDLE THEM PROFITABLY
AND HOW TO ESTIMATE WHAT THEY ARE WORTH
Shark hides can be very profitable, with first class hides worth from $1.00 to $5.00 each, according to size. If the hides have not been handled properly, however, and are in poor condition, the price drops off rapidly, and it may not even be worth while shipping them.
Poor quality is generally caused by faulty handling and can be avoided. The two chief causes of poor quality hides are delay in skinning and careless handling. If you delay skinning the shark, the hide will begin to decompose and “sour spots” or decayed portions will result. If you skin the shark carelessly, “thin bellies” or “butcher cuts” will result, both of which lower the value of the hide.
The most valuable shark for its hide is the Nurse Shark…, but good quality hides of all other species can be sold at only slightly lower prices. You should remember, however, that small sharks (or those with less than 4 feet overall length) or ones with bad fighting scars on the belly are not worth the trouble of skinning.
Specific instructions on how to skin, flesh, cure, pack and ship hides properly are given here and to get the best results you should follow them carefully.
Skinning of Sharks
In skinning a shark, the opening is made along the back, not the belly. A really sharp knife is essential and it must be kept sharp. Do not try to skin the hide off cleanly, but leave a good layer of flesh on the hide. This flesh can be safely and easily removed in the next process described, the “fleshing”.
First cut off the tail at the “knob” just before the tail fin starts; cut off all the other fins…. Insert the knife in the holes already made by removing the mid-back (dorsal) fins, and split the hide along the middle of the back….
Now make cuts around the gills and lower jaw….
Turn the carcass onto its belly and straddle it, facing towards the head of the shark. Seize the left side split of the hide near the head with left hand and hold it firmly while the right hand operates the skinning knife. The hide is peeled off by cutting it away from the carcass. Do not pull too hard as tearing the hide off will produce “thin bellies”. Do not try to skin cleanly; leave plenty of flesh on the hide. Hold the skin taut since if it is left loose you will get butcher cuts. Always use the knife to free the hide, never try to tear it off.
When the left side is skinned off, turn around so that you face the tail end of the shark, and skin off the right side in the same manner.
After the hide is removed, wash it thoroughly in clean sea water, removing all blood and slime. Then put it into a large barrel containing brine (7½ pounds of salt added to 25 gallons of clean sea water, or 15 pounds of salt to 25 gallons of fresh water). This soaking will facilitate fleshing. A 50-gallon barrel, half full of brine, will hold from 15 to 20 hides.
An experienced man can skin a large shark in about 15 minutes, but it is best not to be in a hurry until you have become expert. Remember to keep the skin tight while skinning, leave plenty of flesh on the hide and free the skin by cutting not by pulling.
Fleshing
While fleshing can be done directly on the freshly skinned hide, this is better and more easily carried out after the hide has stood for 3 to 4 hours in the brine solution mentioned above. On no account should the hide be allowed to remain in this solution longer than over night.
Fleshing is done with a “beaming knife”, a curved 16-inch blade with handles at each end. These cost about $7.50 (United States) and can be obtained from the Ocean Leather Corporation, 42 Garden Street, Newark, New Jersey, and at other firms selling fishing gear. Information as to suitable knives may also be obtained from Sheffield Cutters Manufacturers Association, Sheffield, England, and from the Trade Commissioner for the British West Indies and British Guiana, 37 Board of Trade Building, Montreal, P.Q., Canada. The hide is stretched on a “beaming board”, a stout board about 5 feet long and 3 feet wide with a curvature matching that of the beaming knife. The surface of this board must be smooth and kept free from particles of meat or dirt.
One end of the beaming board rests on the floor and the other end has a support which keeps it about the level of a man’s waist. The flesher leans against the board and removes the surplus flesh by pushing the knife away from him (never pulling it towards him).
While the hide is on the beaming board, trim off the meat which may hang over after fleshing, especially around the fin holes. Make sure that the hide is cut back far enough to give clean, flesh-free edges as this will assist in preserving the hide. Next, split the tail end by cutting from the hole around the ventral fins and vent as shown…, through the hole left by the anal fin and then in a straight line to the end of the hide. The resulting hide is shaped as in Figure 8 [deleted]. A good man can flesh and trim a hide in 10 to 15 minutes, but it is foolish to hurry until you are expert. The fleshed, trimmed hide should be immediately washed clean of all slime and blood in clean sea water. It is now ready for “curing”, and this should be commenced without delay.
Curing
Curing is done on a platform with a slight slope so that the water and brine can run off. Sprinkle some salt on the inclined platform and lay the first hide, flesh side up flat on top of it. See that there are no creases or large folds in it. Spread a generous amount of salt over all portions of this flesh surface of the hide, and as a precaution, rub some extra salt along the cut edges. On top of this first hide, place the second one, flesh side up and treat it in the same manner; repeat this process until the pile is 3 or 4 feet high. Hides will take from 3 to 5 days to cure and should not be allowed to stand for more than 6 days. On no account should the curing hides be exposed to rain or hot sun. Rain or fresh water will spoil the hides, and hot sun will wrinkle them and produce a “burnt” hide which is valueless. In localities where the night dew is heavy it is advisable to protect the hides from it.
Some people have obtained good results by using platforms in pairs. After the first day the hides are re-packed in the same manner on the second platform but in the reverse order, the hide that was formerly at the bottom now being at the top. This complication is not essential but helps the process of curing.
In some localities ants and other ground insects may tend to attack the curing hides, but this trouble is great only if the hides have not been fleshed and trimmed properly. In any case the trouble can be easily avoided by any of the usual methods, such as standing the legs of the platform in water cups. Sometimes blowflies become a nuisance, and it is of importance that the hides should not be heavily fly-blown. It will usually be found that, if the curing is done a hundred yards or so from where the skinning, fleshing and trimming is done, this source of trouble is greatly reduced or eliminated. In any case it is advisable to have the curing platform well away from the scene of the fleshing, skinning and trimming. The platform should be protected from strong sunshine and either protected from rain or provision made for removal of the hides to shelter if rain is likely.
If during or after curing the hides show a tendency to become pink, or if after curing they develop damp “weeping” spots, the trouble is probably due to the salt used and salt from a different source should be tried. Once this pink color has appeared, everything, including the fleshing board and curing platform, should be thoroughly disinfected.
“Mineral Salt” is preferable to “Sea” salt, if you can get it, and it should not be too coarse. Medium-grade “Fisheries” salt is best. If “Sea” salt (for example Turks Island) or similar salt is to be used, only matured, well-dried salt with no sign of pink color should be used. Clean surplus salt can be used again, but dirty salt must be discarded.
After 4 or 5 days, the hides are ready for packaging and shipping.
Packaging and Shipping
Whatever salt remains on the cured hides should be shaken off and a new supply of clean salt put on the flesh side. The hides are then folded into flat bundles with the flesh side inwards… to prevent the salt falling out. The flat bundles can now be rolled into round bundles and tied with string.
The packaging of these bundles will depend upon the requirements of the shipping company and these should be ascertained in all cases. Aside from these requirements, almost any type of packaging that permits access of air is satisfactory, for example, burlap or sisal bags, sacks (sugar or flour), braided matting, barrels, etc. If watertight barrels are used, they must be open to the air (that is, bung left out).
Each package should be plainly marked with the initials of the shipper and plainly addressed and should be clearly marked “Shark Hides” and “Product of . . . .(insert country of origin)”. Bills of lading should be sent on by post. Information concerning consular invoices and other documents which may be necessary may be obtained from United Kingdom Trade Commissioners or local Colonial Governments and from the nearest consular office of the country to which the shark hides are to be shipped. At present there is no United States import duty on shark hides. There is no United Kingdom import duty on undressed hides; however, there is a 15% duty on dressed hides.
Estimating What Hides Are Worth
Shark hides are bought on measurement and the method of measurement…. The part of the hide over the tail itself and that over the head where the pores are is valueless. These parts are not recorded in the measurements nor paid for so that it is a waste of time skinning them off. The Leopard Shark and the Sawshark have two keels or bony ribs, one on each side running from the tail along the body for 4 to 16 inches. This part of the hide of these two sharks is valueless and should be cut off.
Defects That Reduce Value of Hides
(a) Holes. These may be due to fighting scars, harpoon scars and butcher cuts. There is nothing you can do about the fighting scars, but the way to avoid butcher cuts has been described under skinning and fleshing.
(b) Sour spots. This really means that the hide is rotten in some place. The most frequent causes of sour spots are not skinning soon enough after death, not curing quickly or well enough, poor quality salt or contact with fresh water.
(c). Burnt hides. Deep wrinkles in the hides cannot be removed during the tanning process, and good marketable leather cannot be produced from hides with deep wrinkles. (Do not confuse these deep wrinkles, produced by faulty handling, with the naturally-occurring, shallow wrinkles, always found in the hide of the Tiger Shark.) Such hides are sometimes called burnt hides. Sometimes these deep wrinkles are caused by not laying the hides flat during curing, but more often by exposing the hides to hot sun.
Sometimes they may become burnt or over-heated during the time they are in storage. To avoid this danger, they should be moved around occasionally so that the air can get at them. A burnt hide is valueless.
(d) Thin bellies. At certain times of the year some sharks, particularly the Nurse Shark, have “thin bellies.” There is nothing that can be done about this.
Another cause of “thin bellies” is improper skinning. The hides are pulled off the sharks, leaving some of the hide substance on the carcass. This cause of “thin bellies” is easily avoided by following the instructions already given for skinning….
The hides are graded and the above prices apply as follows:
No. 1 Hides — Full price, plus 20% bonus. Perfect hides, having no holes and no sour (rotten) spots.
No. 2 Hides — Full price. Hides having not more than 3 holes, or not more than 1 sour spot.
No. 3 Hides — 40% of full price. Hides having 4 or more holes or more than 1 sour spot.
No. 4 Hides — No value. Hides having numerous holes over the entire surface or having a large number of sour spots over the entire surface, making the hide worthless.
The above measurements are based on the length of the hides, skinned and trimmed as per our booklet of instructions. If the extra long tails are not cut off, deductions are made accordingly. Holes refer to butcher cuts, harpoon holes, fighting scars, etc.
The above is a general description of how the hides are graded, subject, however, to adjustments according to the length and width of the holes and the size of the sour spots. Generally speaking, if there are only a few cuts, or one or two sour spots on the edges of the hide, these can be trimmed out, but if there are a number of sour spots or holes in the center of the hide, it reduces the value over 50 per cent.”
SECTION V
SHARK FINS AND SHARK TEETH — HOW TO HANDLE THEM AND WHAT THEY SHOULD BE WORTH
Part 1. Fins
All shark fins with a few exceptions are commercially valuable. They are chiefly in demand for making certain food specialties such as Chinese soups.
The fins which are valueless and which you should not include in your shipment are the side fins of the Sawfish Shark, the upper lobe of the tail of all sharks and all the fins of the Nurse Shark. Furthermore, the value of fins from sharks less than five feet in length is so small that it is not worth the trouble and expense of shipping them.
Cutting
The fins should usually be cut off before skinning. Figures 5 and 6 [deleted] show the location of the fins and where they should be cut. If they are cut correctly on a curve into the fins, very little meat will remain on them. They should then be cleaned free from meat and skin, washed in clean sea water and allowed to soak for a few hours, but not longer than over-night, in clean sea water. This makes final cleaning much easier.
After the fins have soaked for a time, they are taken out and the last traces of skin and flesh removed. They are now ready for drying.
Do not leave large pieces of bone on the fins. You will not be paid for the extra weight, and it will only reduce the grade of your fins.
Drying
The fins are spread in the sun for drying. Excellent spreads can be made from chicken wire or, where this is not available, from split bamboos or withes. They should be two or three feet above the ground and erected at some distance from where the skinning, fleshing and trimming of hides and fins is done or from any other offal that would attract flies.
The fins should never be exposed to rain. During the first few days they should be turned periodically, and they should be taken in at night and packed to protect them from the dew. Later, when the fins are partially dried, these precautions can be relaxed, but they should never be exposed to rain.
It takes about 14 days of good weather with plenty of sunshine to dry the fins properly. When properly dried they are absolutely stiff and hard and, when struck together, ring with a dry sound.
Packing and Shipping
Fins can be packed in bags, cases, barrels or almost anything, but do not use watertight or air tight containers. Pack the “Eastern Shark” fins separately from the Sawfish Shark fins. Always send complete sets of fins from each shark (except, of course, the ones already noted as valueless) as complete sets bring a better price.
Mark each package clearly with a number and the initials of the shipper and mark it “Fins” and “Product of… (insert country of origin)”. Bills of lading and so forth should be sent on by air mail. Information concerning consular invoices and other documents which may be necessary may be obtained from United Kingdom Trade Commissioners or local Colonial Governments and from the nearest consular office of the country to which the fins are to be shipped. At present there is a United States duty of 14 cents per pound on shark fins.
Estimating the Value
A good sized shark will yield about 2 pounds of dried fins. These fins are usually sold through agents on a commission basis. As with all shark products, the price depends upon the quality, and this depends upon the freshness of the shark and the care with which the products are handled.
As an indication of the return which may be expected, the following is the latest quotation from the Ocean Leather Corporation:
“The present market price of the first grade fins is 70 cents per pound and of the second grade fins 15 cents to 25 cents per pound, f.o.b., New York. The second grade fins are the smaller size fins and those which are not properly trimmed and dried. At present there is a strong demand for Shark Fins and we are in a position to dispose of them at favorable prices, promptly.”
It should be noted that there is a considerable demand for shark fins by the Chinese residents of the Caribbean. The prices that can be obtained locally should be investigated.
Part 2. Teeth
Good-sized, sound sharks’ teeth and sharks’ jaws and backbones, either merely cleaned or made into novelty items, have always been in demand by tourists. While these novelty items are obviously not a reason for shark fishing, it takes little trouble to make extra profit from them once the shark has been caught for other purposes.
According to the most recent quotation from the Ocean Leather Corporation, good-sized sound sharks’ teeth sell for 50 cents (United States) per 100. Since a fair-sized Leopard Shark may yield from 150 to 200 sound teeth from its seven rows, you will receive from $1.50 to $2.00 (United States) from the teeth alone. In some species of sharks, however, the teeth are too small to be of any value. They are also often decayed and teeth in back rows are often hollow.
Teeth can easily be removed by boiling the jaws for a short time in water to which a small amount of caustic soda has been added.
Guide to Commercial Shark Fishing in the Caribbean Area (Washington, DC: Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, 1945), pp. 9-11, 38-48, and 50-53.
N.B.: Footnotes, illustrations, and textual references to them have been deleted.
See: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b25579&seq=1
Shadows in the Sea: The Sharks, Skates and Rays
Harold W. McCormick and Tom Allen
Chapter 8
Shark Treasures
The sharks are there — uncountable millions of them — for any maritime country whose people will eat shark and whose fishermen will catch them. But the hunting of sharks is a frustrating, hazardous, and usually not too profitable enterprise. And the capture of a shark can be an exploit — the duel of a solitary man in a rowboat against a thrashing, maddened shark often bigger than he or his boat.
Sometimes shark-hunting methods are downright incredible. Around the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, a crude shark fishery has been built up. A six-week expedition in Seychelles waters has brought in 170 tons of sharks.
Aboard some of the boats, the fishermen depend on “shark callers” — sea-going, self-proclaimed sorcerers. A shark caller drums his feet in a wild tattoo on the deckboards of the pirogue, then slaps the surface of the water with one hand and the hull with the other. Finally, he lets out a loud, spine-tingling wail. Fishermen swear that the antics of the shark caller do bring in sharks.
Perhaps the fishermen of the Seychelles have found, at last, a socially useful purpose for rock ‘n’ roll troubadours. But they haven’t found a way to make shark-catching commercially profitable. Only time, patience, and some kind of government subsidy could do that. William Travis, an entrepreneur of shark fishing in the Seychelles, gave it up after two years. The logistics of commercial fishing called for more money than he had. Like many shark hunters, he managed to salvage an interesting book (Shark for Sale) out of the debris of his failure. He earned little else from sharks, however.
If all the many by-products of the shark are tapped; if markets are developed for all of these by-products; if modern methods of catching, preserving, and utilizing these products are employed — then, and only then, can a shark industry be made profitable. On paper, at least, these profits are possible. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife study showed that $15 to $20 could be earned on a good-sized shark, if it were utilized as thoroughly as the meat industry utilizes pigs or cattle. The study estimated that a 400-pound Tiger shark would produce 112 pounds of edible meat, 20 pounds of dried meal, 8½ gallons of liver oil, 3 pounds of salable fins, $1.50 worth of teeth suitable for sale to curio dealers, and a hide worth at least $3.
The trick is to catch enough sharks and then prepare them for market. Set your net or your line and you get only whatever species happen by. Shark meat spoils quickly. Livers begin turning bad as soon as the shark is dead. Hides can go sour if skinning is delayed as little as 6 hours. And after a full day’s shark fishing — or, in the lairs of nocturnal sharks, a full night’s fishing — the fishermen are too tired to put in another day’s work immediately after they land. So they hire a work crew, thus driving up expenses.
Though sharks may be abundant in a given area, they are known to become will-o’-the-wisps and vanish inexplicably from the places where, theoretically, they should be prevalent.
Take the Basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) for a bankrupting example. This huge, potentially valuable, and relatively easy-to-catch monster can afflict fishermen with acute economic anemia. Basking sharks run to at least 30, and perhaps 40 or more, feet in length; they weigh up to several tons. They are too colossal to be weighed accurately. They have immense livers, heavy with oil, and it is this oil that men have sought for centuries.
For many years, the oil of the Basking shark played a part, with the oil of the whale, in lighting many of the lamps of the Western world. Most Basking sharks caught were stumbled upon by whalers, who were equipped to handle gigantic carcasses and would take on a Basker if it happened by. Not until modern times did single-minded men go after Basking sharks with any hope of making a living from them.
One of these men was Gavin Maxwell, a British Army officer who set up a shark fishery on Soay Island in the Gulf of the Hebrides in 1947. Maxwell planned to get from the Basking shark liver oil, liver residue, fish meal, king-sized fins for shark fin soup, fertilizer, and chemical products from the great shark’s enormous load of plankton. He caught a good number of Baskers and even sent some samples of the flesh to Billingsgate. But, as Maxwell later reported, the flesh merely appalled the dealers, for they found it “twitching in a disgusting way when the cases were opened in London.” The twitching chunks of Basking shark were somehow symbolic of Maxwell’s venture. He found the sharks hard to kill, hard to find a use for, and generally eerie, in an enormous sort of way. The venture failed.
Another seeker after Basking sharks in Scottish waters was Anthony Watkins, a London clerk who put down his pen one day and took up a harpoon. Watkins usually harpooned Baskers from an open dinghy. He and a companion would row up to a Basking shark — often so close that the dinghy was actually directly over the shark’s huge back. Then Watkins would plunge a harpoon into the shark, leap nimbly out of the way of the whistling line attached to the harpoon, and let the shark tow the dinghy until it tired enough to be hauled up and lashed along-side a bigger boat that accompanied the dinghy. Once a shark towed Watkins’ dinghy for 24 hours. The shark, harpooned in Kilbrannan Sound near the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, set a course due west when it left the Sound, and all that stood between Watkins’ 8-foot dinghy and the United States of America was the open sea. When a rescue boat finally found Watkins, after the shark had towed him 100 miles, he had to cast off his indefatigable shark, which swam away with a 9-foot steel harpoon sticking out of its back and was never seen again. Watkins said he did eventually make some money on his Basking shark venture. He quit the business shortly before the price of shark oil plummeted.
P. Fitzgerald O’Connor, a British writer turned sharker, also had a short-lived fling at catching Basking sharks. He said he broke even. Basking sharks produced for these three men an unusual by-product: books. O’Connor, Watkins, and Maxwell each wrote a book about his adventures, and each man’s experiences and observations added much to the previously scanty scientific knowledge of the Basking shark.
Today, on the small island of Achill off the western coast of County Mayo, Ireland, a group of hardy fishermen are pitting the luck of the Irish against the Basking shark. The great sharks — the Irish call them muldoans — appear out of nowhere around St. Patrick’s Day, but not until the end of April, when the winter weather dies in Achill’s Bay of Keem, can the fishermen go after the muldoans.
Great nets are stretched across one side of the bay, and shark after shark blunders into them. Then men set out in small boats called currachs to battle the sharks, stabbing them with hand harpoons, and wrestling them out of the nets. As many as 30 sharks a day — most of them 25 to 35 feet long — are captured in the bay during the season, which ends in July or August. From 60 to 70 gallons of oil are produced from the average shark, but the value of oil fluctuates wildly, and the market price is rarely stable. Low in vitamin content, the oil is used primarily for industrial purposes, such as in some tanning processes. The liver of the slaughtered sharks is usually all that is used; their carcasses are dumped at sea. Attempts have been made to induce Irish farmers to use pulverized shark meat in cattle feeds, but the farmers will have no muldoans, ground up or not, upsetting the dietary traditions of their fine Irish cattle. The sharks’ tremendous hides have defied efforts to make them into leather. Even the sharks’ teeth, minute and very unterrifying, are commercially worthless.
American attempts to cash in on the goliath Basking shark have often shown a spectacular flair. In 1924, two men began harpooning Baskers for sport in Monterey Bay, California. Eventually they discovered that the big sharks could be turned into money. Meal made from the carcasses was used in livestock feed and dog biscuits, and a spiritual descendant of the old frontier snake-oil salesmen bottled and sold “Sun Shark Liver Oil” as “Nature’s Own Tonic.” The industry all but died out around 1938.
After World War II, a new generation of California sharkers attacked the Basking sharks with a combined air-sea-land operation, using war surplus equipment. A shark-spotting aircraft patrolled the California coast around Monterey. When the pilot saw a school of sharks living up to their name by basking on the surface, he began circling the sharks and radioed a crew standing by in an amphibious “Duck” vehicle parked on the beach. The Duck raced along the beach until it came opposite to the circling plane. Then it plunged into the surf and headed for the sharks, which were usually a quarter to a half mile offshore.
As the Duck neared the school, a shark was selected and the sea-going truck bore down on it. The harpooner, in a “pulpit” rigged to a bowsprit, leaned down over the shark and plunged his 65-pound weapon into it. Attached to the harpoon were several hundred feet of 3/4-inch manila rope. The heavy rope smoked as it ran out, pulled by tons of writhing energy plunging toward the bottom. Usually, 500 feet of rope ran out before the shark seemed to be tiring. A sealed oil drum was often tied to the line at about the 250-foot mark. This drum was intended to act as a drag on the fish, but frequently it was towed so deep below the surface that the pressure caused it to collapse.
If and when the shark was finally subdued and pulled to the surface, it was shot with a 30/30 rifle. Only a shot through an eye or between the eyes could possibly kill a Basking shark, so it sometimes took hours to administer the coup de grâce. After the shark was killed, it was tied to a buoy, and the Duck returned to shore to await another radio message from the plane. Meanwhile, another man of the group phoned processing plants until he found a customer. When a shark was sold, the Duck would return to the buoy, untie the shark and tow it to shore, where a winch hauled it up a ramp and into a truck.
One hundred sharks were killed in one year at one beach by the shark commandos, and one champion harpooner killed 7 in a single day — with the same harpoon. The sharkers got 7 to 9 cents a pound for the sharks’ livers, which weighed from 700 to 2,000 pounds. Nothing was paid for the carcasses, though the processing plants sometimes converted them into meal for chicken feed. One of the plants that handled the huge fish was designed for a fish somewhat smaller. It was a sardine. plant!
The price for livers eventually dropped to a point where the amphibious sharkers were getting less than $35 for a 5-ton fish that took an airplane, a Duck, and a crew of men to land. And finally, if not inevitably, the great Basking shark adventure collapsed. By 1953, Basking shark fishing in California was described by the State Department of Fish and Game as sporadic.
Sharks are often enemies of man, but the brigand can yield bounty, too. For the shark is a valuable fish. Locked in the livers of some sharks are oils often more potent in vitamins than cod liver oil, and a chemical found in the liver is leading medical researchers down promising new avenues in the search for ways to destroy two enemies of man far deadlier than the shark-cancer and heart disease. The denticle-armored skin is stronger than cowhide.
Though the shark is a cornucopia of the sea, many attempts to bring this treasure to shore have ended in failure. When the stakes have been high enough, men have sought the shark, and the shark has made some of them rich. But, even when man’s avarice is pitted against the shark, the odds of survival are on the shark.
In 1938, sharks accidentally caught by U.S. fishermen were considered worthless predators of useful fish, whose destruction of nets cost fishermen much more than they could ever make by selling the sharks’ carcasses. The top price was $10 a ton. Most carcasses were ground up and used for fertilizer.
Then the war in Europe began. German troops overran Norway, and abruptly a major source of a vital commodity was cut off from Great Britain and the United States— cod liver oil. Millions of pounds of cod liver oil had been exported for many years from Norway to the United States and England. Vitamin A was extracted from the oil and added not only to human diets but also to the diets of livestock and poultry. In both countries, a search began for new sources of the vitamin.
In San Francisco, Tano Guaragnella, a wholesale fish broker, heard about the hunt for a substitute source of vitamin A. On a hunch, Guaragnella took some fresh shark liver to a chemist for analysis. The liver, from a dogfish (Squalus acanthias), produced an astonishing assay. There was ten times more vitamin A in the dogfish’s liver than was usually found in the liver of the cod (Gadus morua).
Guaragnella went back to the docks and, as casually as he could, dropped the word to fishermen that he would pay $25 a ton for dogfish. The fishermen thought he was crazy, but they started landing the “worthless” dogfish, of which there had never been a shortage on their fishing grounds.
Soon after he made his discovery about the dogfish liver’s potency, Guaragnella happened to see some fishermen dressing a Soupfin shark (Galeorhinus zyopterus), whose colloquial name derived from the Chinese gourmet’s preference for its fins in shark fin soup. Guaragnella noticed that the Soupfin’s liver was immense. Again, he had a hunch.
This time the chemist’s report was fantastic. The liver of the Soupfin was ten times more potent in vitamin A than the liver of the dogfish, which meant that the Soupfin liver oil was 100 times richer in vitamin A than cod liver oil itself!
Guaragnella announced that he would buy all the Soupfin sharks the fishermen could bring in, and that he would pay $40 a ton for them. Word of his startling offer flashed through the waterfront of San Francisco and up the West Coast as far as Alaska. Soon, too, other wholesalers learned the secret of their competitor’s sudden desire for shark livers. And the bidding for shark livers began.
Another California “Gold Rush” was on! The new El Dorado was called “gray gold,” and the fishermen who set out to mine the California seas were as wild with “gold” fever as their prospecting predecessors had been. Prices, set by daily bidding in fishermen’s exchanges, shot up from Guaragnella’s original $40 a ton to $60 . . . $80 . . . $100. From Alaska to Mexico fishermen deserted their usual commercial fishing banks to seek a bonanza of Soupfins. The price kept rocketing. By September, 1941, it was hitting $1,200 a ton!
The attack on Pearl Harbor was only three months away, but the Japanese suspended their growing belligerency toward the United States long enough to profit from the shark-oil boom. Tons of frozen shark liver were shipped out of Japan to meet the insatiable demands of the United States.
And the bidding kept on. By the time the United States had entered the war, the price had hit $1,500 a ton. The average Soupfin was worth $25. Some of the larger ones were worth $200 each for their livers alone.
Never before had fishermen earned so much money so quickly. A San Francisco fishing boat went off on a four-day Soupfin hunt and came back to the wharf with $17,500 worth of shark. One fisherman made $40,000 in five months. The professionals weren’t the only ones making money. Students at the University of Washington skipped classes to fish for shark in Puget Sound. Farm boys who had never been to sea were recruited by shark fishermen and earned as much as $800 for a week’s work.
Most of the sharks were caught in gill nets, which are either suspended from the surface, like great curtains a half mile or more in length, or dropped to the bottom, where floats along their top and weights along their bottom keep them vertical. The sharks, pursuing smaller fish, such as sardines, swam into the diamond-shaped openings of the net’s weave and were trapped when their gills or fins became snared by the net. Unable to back up, the sharks hung there. In their death struggles, the sharks often ruined the nets. Or hagfish (Myxine), a relative of the lamprey, provided with a rare opportunity to turn from prey to predator, attacked the enmeshed sharks. Like the fishermen, the hagfish were after the sharks’ soft parts, and many a net was hauled up with liverless sharks. So many sharks were being taken and so great was the price, however, that the cost of damaged nets or damaged sharks could be absorbed by the West Coast fishermen, when as many as 200 sharks were pulled in with one haul of a net.
While the frenzied, every-man-for-himself shark rush was going on along the West Coast of the United States and Canada, a more systematic assault on the shark was being organized in Florida by an organization known as Shark Industries, Inc. It had been found that other types of sharks also had livers rich in vitamin A. In 1944, this company was taken over by one of the best-known brand names in the country, a firm whose trademark was a happy, personable cow named Elsie — the Borden. Company, largest processor of dairy products in America. Probably because they did not want to get their customers’ image of gentle Elsie confused with the fierce visage of Jack Shark, officials of the Borden Company did not ballyhoo their connection with sharks. It will undoubtedly come as a surprise to many a milk-drinker to learn that sharks as well as cows provided him with his vitamin-enriched milk.
The Borden Company is reputed to have invested at least a million dollars in the enterprise. Its shark fleet grew to 40 vessels, many of them equipped with refrigerated holds and capable of staying at sea for periods as long as six months. Instead of nets, the Borden ships usually relied on long-line fishing. Steel cables stretching out almost two miles were unwound from the bigger ships. Strung from the cables were large baited hooks about 40 feet apart. The cables, marked with buoys, were set out one day and hauled in the following day — and so were the sharks. As a power winch slowly brought in the cable, a man stood at the bow of the boat with a big wooden mallet. If a shark were still alive when gaffed, it was clouted on the snout and stunned, and a boom swung it into the hold. It could then thrash in the hold until it expired.
It was arduous but profitable work. Off Salerno, Florida, where Borden’s shark-catching eventually was concentrated, as many as 341 sharks were caught in a single day by four boats. The weights of individual sharks ranged as high as 1,500 pounds. In one month, 1,972 sharks were brought in. One boat brought in a single catch of 182 sharks.
Borden also joined in the West Coast shark boom. But from the relentless overfishing of sharks there soon resulted a dramatic decline in Soupfins. In 1944, almost 53,000,000 pounds of shark were caught. That was the peak. Soupfins became more and more scarce. The price of their livers held up, though, finally reaching a giddy summit of $14.25 a pound.
At a small fish-marketing and processing firm in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the production of oil from livers had been a minor sideline. Suddenly, the company was turning out more than $2,000,000 worth of shark oil a year. Borden opened its own plant for the extraction of shark-produced vitamin A, which was added to dairy products. By 1946, three cents of every dollar Borden earned came from non-food products and, for most of this, Borden’s stockholders could thank the maligned shark, not Elsie. During the war, shark liver oil supplied approximately 75 per cent of the vitamin A produced in the U.S. Though shipyards were restricted to turning out war vessels, the rule was lifted to permit the building of boats to go after sharks. And, as more and more sharks were. caught under the inspiration of war and profit-making, more and more was learned, not only about vitamin A but also about the shark family itself.
Vitamin A came close to being labeled a panacea. It was found to stimulate growth, increase resistance to infection, aid in combatting fever and colds, and prevent excessive dryness of the skin. Not every shark’s liver was packed with vitamin A. The potency, measured in U.S. Pharmacopoeia units, varied from 35 units to 43,000,000 units. The variance ranged from shark to shark and from species to species.
West Coast fishermen, for the most part, threw away all but the liver, though canny Chinese traders usually managed to get the fins, which they sold at premium prices. Under Borden’s aegis, however, a profit was made on virtually every ounce of the shark. The fins were cut off and sold to shark fin buyers for as much as $6 a set. On this sideline alone, Borden sometimes made $3,000 to $5,000 a month. The teeth of some sharks were sold to costume jewelers. The entire jaws of big sharks were sometimes dried, preserved, and sold to would-be game fishermen. These jaws, as a Borden spokesman diplomatically put it, “found their way into trophy rooms on plaques with brass plates which could be inscribed at will.”
Some of the sharks’ hides were tanned into leather. Prime shark meat was cut into steaks, frozen, and shipped to countries, primarily in South America, where there was, and is, no prejudice against eating shark. Less palatable meat went to Borden’s Special Products Division, where it was used in poultry and livestock feed preparations. What was left of the shark was ground up for commercial fertilizer.
The abundance of sharks in the Caribbean, and the profits that could be made from the shark’s many products, soon came to the attention of the U.S. Department of State, which, as World War II neared its end, was concerned about the post-war economic problems of underdeveloped countries. The Anglo-American Caribbean Commission published and distributed to Caribbean fishermen a handbook on shark fishing. The booklet told fishermen how to identify and catch sharks, how to skin and process shark hides, and how to make a profit on shark liver, meat, fins, and even teeth. “Good-sized, sound sharks’ teeth and sharks’ jaws and backbones, either cleaned or made into novelty items,” the booklet said, “have always been in demand by tourists.”
Cojimar, Cuba, the setting of Hemingway’s classic, The Old Man and The Sea, was one of many places on the Gulf of Mexico where small “shark factories” sprang up. Most of the money came from liver oil, which was distilled in the factories by a simple method. Livers, chopped into fist-sized chunks, were rendered down in big vats. The oil was skimmed off, cooled, canned, and shipped to U.S. dealers for about $4.75 a gallon, depending on its vitamin potency. The process required little skill and paid big dividends.
From Ketchikan to Monterey on the West Coast of America, in the little towns of the Caribbean, in fishing ports where the shark had been a feared and hated enemy for generations, suddenly it was a boon. The shark was giving men profits instead of stealing them.
But the intensive research into vitamin A was to have an ironic twist. Thanks to the abundance of vitamin A provided by the shark, scientists came to know the vitamin so well that they discovered how to make it. Vitamin A was synthesized.
By 1950, the shark boom was over. It took some time for production of the man-made vitamin A to supplant the natural vitamin obtained from shark liver oil but, one by one, the shark fisheries folded up. In California, where nearly 53,000,000 pounds of shark had been landed in a single year, shark catches shrank to a little more than 1,000,000 pounds and finally dropped to the insignificant pre-boom level. In Washington State, where as much as $3,000,000 worth of sharks had been caught in a single boom year, dogfish livers began selling at 10 cents a pound, and the total value of shark livers plummeted in 1953 to $3,000. Borden’s Elsie no longer had competition from any shark. In 1950, Borden went out of the shark business. Cojimar managed to hold out until 1958, when the little shark-oil factory shut down, and, once more, the shark became a nuisance or an enemy.c
A 1956 survey of California waters showed that the Soupfin, whose ranks had been thinned by the shark-oil boom, was again abundant. By careful fishing of all the shark species, the survey showed, from one to two billion pounds of shark could be caught a year within the range of California’s fishing fleets. All that was needed was a market… But a market was no longer there….
Harold W. McCormick and Tom Allen, Shadows in the Sea: The Sharks, Skates and Rays (Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1963), pp. 179-188. N.B.: Footnotes have been deleted. All images are found in: https://www.pexels.com/. The photographers are: Adiprayog O. Liemena, Daniel Torobekov, Ben Philips, Magda Ehlers, Vovaflame, and Stephen Leonardi.
See: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822012855607&seq=1
