SHARK PRODUCTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20290, 24 December 1927, Page 9

SHARK PRODUCTS.

RAPIDLY-INCREASING IN DUSTRY. Those who have hitherto regarded the shark as a scourge and a peril of the seas may be inclined to revise *heir opinion when its uses are enumerated. When a shark is dead its body yields, among other things: Leather from hide, soft leather for fancy goods, pigments, glue, fertiliser, fins for epicures, insulin from the glands, fish meal from bones, rock salmon shagreen fibre as tensile as silk, and medicinal oil from the liver. These virtues were discovered during a visit to the steamship Istar in London docks. It would b e more accurate to describe it as a ship factory, since ; t is equipped with plant for tanning the hides of sharks and extracting the utmost value from their bodies. The hides were broug.it from Carnarvon, in Western '.ustralia. where sharks are so numerous that a motor boat crew caught 185 tons in 105 working hours. There .s no lack of these fishes of prey. It nas been estimated that over a million sharks a lay in the of migration pass between Fire Island and Cape San Roque, an there are in addition prolific fishing grounds off the coasts of ndia and the East Indies. Dr Ehrenreich. an Amen can director of marine products in the course of a demonstration, explained that the Tster carries 170 nets made of linen heme, and the actual fishing is done by 10 motor boats. The sharks really destroy themselves, for when they enter the nets the continue to thrust forward, and thus pint „ their gills. The effect is to suffocate them. The industry has grown so rapidlv that the Istar is now used as a training and demonstration ship. though it is proposed to fit out other vessels as floating factories, and to lish land tanning factories. Every shark’s hide yields about 14 1 splits ’ of leather. It, was astonishing »« be told that the cost of tanning was only Id a square foot. The shark itself accommodatingly provides in the engymes derived from the pancreatic gland one of the agents used in tanning its hide. The development of the industry will doubtless he facilitated bv the low cost of production and the immense supply of raw material which is available.