Use and abuse

People have found a use for almost every part of a shark’s body. The tough skin can be turned into leather, the teeth into jewellery, the jaws into souvenirs, the carcass into fertilizers, the fins into soup, the flesh eaten, and the oil from the liver used in industry, medicines, and cosmetics. Human exploitation of wild animals like sharks can cause a serious decline in numbers, if more animals are killed than can be replaced by the birth and survival of the young. Sharks are especially at risk because they are slow to reproduce. It is hard to put sensible limits on the numbers of shark that can safely be fished because so little is known about them. Today, sharks are mainly exploited for their meat and fins and demand for shark meat will probably continue as the human population increases. If fewer people were to use products derived from sharks, their effect on the natural balance in the oceans could prove to be disastrous.

Jaws for salemany sharks are killed and their jaws sold to tourists as souvenirs. Jaws of large sharks, like the great white, fetch high prices. The sale of great white jaws is now banned in South Africa.

Headless Corpse
This sharks was killed for sport ad had its head cut off so its jaws could be removed. Shark jaws are popular trophies in the same way that hunters show off the head and horns of deer they have shot.

Shark and Chips
Much of the fish sold in British fish and clip shops is, in fact, spiny dogfish, one of the most abundant and heavily fished kind of shark. Many kinds of shark are given a different name when sold for meat - dogfish is disguised as "rock salmon" in Britain. In the past, people did not like to eat shark because they thought sharks ate the bodies of dead sailors. Sadly, shark steaks are becoming a fashionable delicacy in some restaurants.

Shark liver oil pills
in some countries people believe that shark oil can cure all kinds of ills. Shark oil is composed of many different substances, including vitamin A, but this vitamin can now be made artificially.
Shark fin soup
The cartilaginous fibres in shark fins are made into soup, which some oriental people regard as a delicacy. The dried fins are soaked and repeatedly boiled to extract the mass of gelatinous fibres. Many other ingredients are then added to these noodles-like fibres to give the soup some taste.