Products Made from Sharks

Shark Fins and Shark Meat

 While the shark fin trade is still the biggest offender, the market for shark meat is also a great concern. In areas where overfishing has decimated other fish populations, sharks are increasingly hunted for their meat. Often the meat by itself would not be worth enough to make shark fishing profitable if the fins weren’t also sold. It is a complex dynamic driven by a consumer market that may be ill informed and a commercial fishing industry that aims to stay in business by creating more demand for anything that comes from a shark.

SHARK OIL

Shark oil is made from the liver of sharks and used in supplements such as fish oil capsules and Squalene in cosmetics. Often the effectiveness of the product is overhyped. There are plenty of plant sources for "Squalene" that can be used instead

SHARK CARTILAGE

Cartilage is sold as a supplement for joint support and as immune booster to fight cancer. 

GIL PLATES

Global manta and mobula ray populations are hunted to extinction to harvest their gill plates (thin cartilage filaments inside the gils). Said to have medicinal value, these healing properties seem to have been invented to create a market for new products. Mantas and mobula reproduce even slower than sharks and cannot sustain hunting pressure on such a scale. 

Neither shark oil, nor cartilage, has been proven to be effective.