MEN WHO MAKE MONEY FROM SHARKS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 November 1927, Page 3

MEN WHO MAKE MONEY FROM SHARKS

(By AY. S. SIIARLAND..I Those terrible, grim hunters ot t ic sea sharks, are very prevalent ... Australian waters, where the temperature of the sea around the greater poi mn of the Commonwealth’s coast is su - ciently warm to keep them there all the vear round. , There is food in abundance for the sharks, and the monsters play grea havoc with the fish. There are tunes, however, when tlie sharks show a distinct taste for other flesh. + . 'L. abattoirs exist, they haunt the w. which is littered with the offal. Human lives have also been lost. In variably in shark-infested uaters swimmer; exercise the greatest precau-j tions. But sharks have been known to come into three feet of water and take terrified swimmers out to sea. There are different varieties ot sharks around Australia, and naturally the man-eater is the most feared and loathed. The great Pacific shark, commonly known as the grey . nurse variety, often attains a length of torty feet, ’ imagine what chance a*human being has in the water against a brute of such" dimensions! All Australia is greatly interested in th? project of fill Eprlis}) compfiny

which has put considerable capital into an enterprise to make money from siiarks. This company lias brought out machinery from England and established itself at Carnarvon, on the West Australian coast. Round there sharks abound. The company hopes to catch from a hundred sharks upwards daily, and they are to be boiled down. Leather, oil, meat, manure, gelatine, and gum are to be secured as by-products. Shagreen, the leather cured from the shark’s skin, is a rare and expensive article on the world’s market, and is keenly sought for. So also is an oil obtained from the liver. Other parts of sharks are commercially sold as meat. The dried intestines are used as fertiliser, while other organs yield good gelatine and gum.