Shark Fishing

WARNING!

This post may contain images, videos, and information that may be alarming for those that are ecologically-conscious and/or squeamish.

This Sunday I had an extraordinary experience. I went shark fishing with Fran, Luis, and Paul. I do not know how long Fran has been shark fishing, but below is a photo of Fran with the biggest shark that he has ever caught. It has to be over 15 years old. He says that he is the only shark fisher in Miches.

While I was in Miches over the summer I wasn't aware of shark fishing occurring, which could be because Fran didn't trust me or the others working for ESSEG, but when I came back over winter break, Paul told me that Fran goes shark fishing quite often and had offered to take him out. He sets out nets to catch enough rays and other fish to use as bait, which he puts on lines with a giant hook on the end and a large buoy. There is a row of 5 bouys on one line. This time he caught 4 sharks on 5 lines.

Fran sells the entire shark: its fins, the meat, the shark oil, and the teeth. The fins are sold to Chinamen who come all the way to Miches to buy the fins from him for 800 pesos ( $22) a pound. The Chinese use them to make shark fin soup, which is considered a delicacy and has been growing in popularity as people are able to afford it. In most other locations where sharks ar caught for its fins, it's finned alive and thrown over board to slowly die. So one upside about shark fishing in Miches is that almost everything is used. The meat is sold to the cities and the fishers say that it tastes delicious. The shark oil is used locally for curing respiratory aliments. Over the summer, one of the kids in Los Mameyes was sick so they gave him a botella made from shark liver oil, honey, and some other herbs to drink. I was feeling under the weather as well and they let me try some. It tasted like honey. They also use the shark's teeth to make necklaces and other jewelry. Fran's wife said that she had a necklace made from shark's teeth.

Here is one of the four tiger sharks that were caught. When they were cleaned, together they all weighed 480 pounds. Fran said that sometimes they only catch one shark that weighs over 500 pounds. When sharks get that big, they can't load it into the boat and drag it alongside it. They would rathe rhave larger sharks than smaller sharks. For these sharks, they got 2,000-3,000 pesos for each, which is around US$ 56-83.

Here's a shark that got its head bitten by another shark after the fishers left it out on the line to die.

Hooked

This shark was a little "guapo," the Dominican word for agressive, and had to be tied down with a line.

Shark fishing footage.

Shark fishing is not sustainable and is one more reason why I hope the lobster house project is successful. You are fishing at the top of the food chain, which disrupts the entire balance of the ecosystem, and it is unhealthy to consume shark meat because it is high in mercury since it is so high in the food chain. I also do not like that they catch spotted eagle rays, which are listed as not threatened by the IUCN, but would be a thrill for a tourist to see while snorkeling. They are truly magnificant fish. I don't know why they can't use other types of fish or even rotten meat from the butcher. It is very profitable though and as Fran said, shark fishing is is "divertido" (fun) compared to other kinds of fishing. I imagine he takes pride in being able to kill these top predators of the ocean. One aspect of this experience that gave me hope is that there are enough sharks out there in order to be able to shark fish. This means that the ecosystem is very healthy because the more top predators there are, the less effect fishing has had on the ecosystem. This has been shown by the research conducted at the Palmyra atoll, an isolated island that has never had extenisive fisheries and 56% of its total fish biomass is top predators. I hope that shark fishing will be stopped before the sharks are fished out.

As for the legality of shark fishing, it is legal to fish for sharks besides the basking shark, the great white, and the whale shark. The only state in the US in which shark fishing is illegal is Hawaii but the US has toughened its laws so that there shark finning is illegal, meaning that the entire shark must be kept and shark fins can still be traded and sold in restaurants. However, more than 80 other countries are suppliers to the shark fin market in Hong Kong, which is stated by this article, and one kilo (2.2 pounds) of shark fin can go for US$ 120. The demand for shark fins is not going to disappear any time soon. It is not on the same level as blue fin tuna and Japan because there are many different species and sharks will be likely to be protected by CITES in the future because they are charismatic and not as tasty. What worries me is that there are so many species that can be fished to meet the shark fin demand, which means that fishers can switch to other species once one has been made illegal, causing a total collapse of all shark populations. A total ban on shark fishing and the sale of shark fins should be issued before this happens.