Amid threats to biodiversity, sharks remain at risk of extinction. Contributing to that risk is the practice of fishing sharks and selling their meat. Unfortunately, a study published in Frontiers in Marine Science discovered that much of the shark meat sold at grocery stores and markets in the U.S. comes from endangered species.
What’s happening?
While shark meat is sold across the U.S., retailers often do not provide details about which species it is, the study found. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill uncovered 11 different shark species in the 29 shark meat products they sampled, using DNA to identify them.
Additionally, 93% of these samples were mislabeled, meaning that their labels did not distinguish what type of shark the meat was. Twenty-seven of the 29 products were marked “shark” or “mako shark” without a species designation, according to the researchers.
Why are mislabeled meat products important?
Two of the species identified in the sampled shark meat products include scalloped hammerhead and great hammerhead, which have high levels of mercury, and people are advised against eating them. But without proper labels, shoppers do not know if the product they are purchasing contains these dangerous-to-consume species.
“Mislabeling and ambiguous labeling remove consumers’ ability to choose what they are putting in their bodies,” first author of the study and co-instructor of the seafood forensics class that conducted it, Savannah Ryburn, said.
Beyond the risks to human health, shark meat has environmental consequences. Great hammerhead and scalloped hammerhead, for example, are both considered critically endangered, the researchers explained. Overfishing threatens sharks, including these two species, putting over one-third of their more than 530 species at risk of extinction, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Sharks play crucial roles in marine ecosystems and aid the marine carbon cycle. However, NOAA Fisheries reported sharks are in a worse conservation state than all other vertebrates, besides amphibians. They are more vulnerable to overfishing than other marine animals since their populations take longer to rebuild, and they are susceptible to becoming bycatch.
What’s being done about shark meat products and shark populations?
The researchers advocated for both stronger shark and consumer protections. Some of the products they studied cost as little as $2.99 per pound, which the scientists were shocked to discover since sharks are “the ocean’s equivalent of lions,” Ryburn said.
John Bruno, who co-instructs the seafood forensics class with Ryburn, argued that the U.S. “should require seafood distributors to provide species-specific names for the products being sold.” Such labels would empower consumers to make better choices for their health and the environment.
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