USE FOR SHARKS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

USE FOR SHARKS

Long regarded as a total loss, the shark is now fast becoming a commercial asset, says “Think.” Surprisingly little of the carcase is wasted, for the utilization of shark products lias been stea'dily developed of late years. It is estimated that an average adult specimen of this “tiger of the seas” —about ten feet in length—yields approximately two and one-half pounds of edible fins, from 150 to 200 teeth in good condition, from 18 to 20 per cent, of its total weight in oil, a skin of about eighty-five inches in length, and, if one of the right variety. 40 per cent, of its weight in dried, salted flesh. The shark product with the highest industrial value is said to be the liver oil, which is used as medicine. Word comes from Japan that a recently invented process makes it possible to use shark oils as a lubricant in aeroplane and other motors at a temperature as low as forty-live degrees below zero. Further use of high-grade shark oil is ■said to ‘be made by the Japanese in tempering steel.