Costco, Shark Cartilage, & Medicine

In recent months, Wetpixel has urged it's members to petition large companies on behalf of conserving & protecting precious marine life. See Amazon and the sale of sharkfin soup. The following pictures were taken from a Costco in Taipei, however, you can plainly see the "MANUFACURED IN THE USA" label on the Move Free product (picture #2).

I think that the vast majority of forum members would agree that we should not be killing sharks for food. Obviously, I'm playing to a partisan crowd here. My question: When if ever IS it acceptable to use sharks as a medical resource? Personally, I stumbled upon this product in my search to alleviate my recent knee pain. Admittedly, I was tempted to buy it. And frankly, if it PROMISED results, I might have followed through with my purchase. Your thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

-David

Simple answer: never.

Unless perhaps you life depends on it, and science has proved it is the only remedy.

There are plenty of products from endangered animals that are sold with the PROMISE of everthing of being wonderful aphrodisiacs, giving eternal life or weight loss. But unless your doctor subscribes it, you can be pretty sure the main effect (wheight loss) will be on your wallet, nothing else.

I too have bad knees, but I'd rather dive and see sharks, than have my knees fixed if the only meds come from sharks.

One of the things that bothers me the most is how readily available the product is. Afterall, Costco is a BULK SELLER!!! Needless to say, no prescription is needed. On the day I happened to take the pictures, the KIRKLAND brand was even a featured item along the front display.

On my recent visit to America, I also stopped by Costco. FWIW, the shark cartiliage ingrediant was absent in the Move Free product. Do they feel that they need to add shark cartilage for the Asian consumer? Or, do they believe they can simply get away with it here? As a longtime resident of Taiwan, I'm insulted on both accounts.

Problem is that these "cures" are yet to be proven effective or not per se for many of its purported cures. The anti-cancer aspect has been tested by several trials showing no benefit. In fact in 99, the FDA blocked sales of shark cartilage as cancer cure drugs.

As an arthritic cure, it is also been proven not effective.

Apparently the latest remarketing is for antioxident properties of shark cartilage.

Whether something is actually a cure for arthritis, cancer, or impotence is one issue, but I also think we have a strange and somewhat simplistic notion of what constitutes waste in fishing, farming, and many other interactions we have with the world. It's the kind of stuff that Michael Pollan might get into if he were to write "The Piscivore's Dilemma."

On the gut level, and also when thinking about how many people on Earth are malnourished, the practice of shark finning seems abominable because of the apparent wastefulness of it. But that perspective seems to ignore the effect of putting biomass back into the system that you've plucked it from. I wonder if, on the whole, there's anything beneficial to the oceans about removing an entire shark versus removing just 5% of a shark. Likewise, would it be better if every ounce of life that came up on a trawler on Georges Bank were taken to the dock and turned into food, fish meal, fertilizer, etc? Or is it the lesser of two evils to at least leave some of that biomass in the system as food for scavengers, detritivores, etc? Do the albatrosses that are occasionally hooked by longline gear end up better off because of longlining (because they can feed on dead fish hanging from the gear all day long, not to mention the offal thrown overboard)? It's a big, nasty, complicated picture. I know some people are looking into this--the questions of total biomass removed from ecosystems, and how species are adapting to what commcercial fishing both gives and takes--but most of us still think of bycatch or finless sharks as things that go into a black hole after they are thrown overboard. More rambling on this here.

As for whether sharks and other organisms should be available for use in medicine or medical research, sure. And that's one good reason to maintain biodiversity: it is the largest source of potentially lifesaving compounds we have, and we'd be fools to get rid of it.

Not sure I understand the point of all this 'rambling' as you call it. Certainly we all understand the cycle of life as you describe it; but this is not relevant to the argument. Bottom line is that whole species, ie sharks, dolphins etc are being depleted , irrespective of whether part or all of the animal is being used.

Logical use of animal and plant products for medical research is also reasonable. In most cases, once a medicinal value for such a product is found, the active ingredient can then be isolated, and synthesized, without continuing to contribute to the destruction of a species.

Whether something is actually a cure for arthritis, cancer, or impotence is one issue, but I also think we have a strange and somewhat simplistic notion of what constitutes waste in fishing, farming, and many other interactions we have with the world. It's the kind of stuff that Michael Pollan might get into if he were to write "The Piscivore's Dilemma."

 

On the gut level, and also when thinking about how many people on Earth are malnourished, the practice of shark finning seems abominable because of the apparent wastefulness of it. But that perspective seems to ignore the effect of putting biomass back into the system that you've plucked it from. I wonder if, on the whole, there's anything beneficial to the oceans about removing an entire shark versus removing just 5% of a shark. Likewise, would it be better if every ounce of life that came up on a trawler on Georges Bank were taken to the dock and turned into food, fish meal, fertilizer, etc? Or is it the lesser of two evils to at least leave some of that biomass in the system as food for scavengers, detritivores, etc? Do the albatrosses that are occasionally hooked by longline gear end up better off because of longlining (because they can feed on dead fish hanging from the gear all day long, not to mention the offal thrown overboard)? It's a big, nasty, complicated picture. I know some people are looking into this--the questions of total biomass removed from ecosystems, and how species are adapting to what commcercial fishing both gives and takes--but most of us still think of bycatch or finless sharks as things that go into a black hole after they are thrown overboard. More rambling on this here.

 

As for whether sharks and other organisms should be available for use in medicine or medical research, sure. And that's one good reason to maintain biodiversity: it is the largest source of potentially lifesaving compounds we have, and we'd be fools to get rid of it.

Dude... Your dealer has sold you some bad weed! It's messing with your perspective!

I think to say that scavengers on the bottom of the ocean benefit is probably true but to say that it's a positive in the big picture is way off the mark. Not a whole lot eats lampreys etc, in fact i'm not even going to start an argument about it.

You're entitled to your opinion and I to mine. Hopefully one day in the future our children will flock to see the Chubbs and Sargent Majors eating the crap from a sewage outflow at a resort, with algae covered rocks and the odd bit of sponge, as long as the biomass is there, they'll be happy, right?

Costco has just lost a customer (ME!)

Dude... Your dealer has sold you some bad weed! It's messing with your perspective!

 

I think to say that scavengers on the bottom of the ocean benefit is probably true but to say that it's a positive in the big picture is way off the mark. Not a whole lot eats lampreys etc, in fact i'm not even going to start an argument about it.

 

You're entitled to your opinion and I to mine. Hopefully one day in the future our children will flock to see the Chubbs and Sargent Majors eating the crap from a sewage outflow at a resort, with algae covered rocks and the odd bit of sponge, as long as the biomass is there, they'll be happy, right?

 

Costco has just lost a customer (ME!)

I didn't say that a benefit to benthic scavengers is necessarily a positive in the big picture. What I'm getting at is that some of our immediate notions about what is good, bad, better, or worse for the oceans are worth taking a close look at, because they're often centered on our gut feelings and our anthropocentric perspective on what is right and wrong. I hate shark finning, too, but I'm not sure it's any worse for marine ecosystems than the removal of whole sharks. Yes, many marine species are overfished, and that's a bad thing, but an ecosystems approach is ultimately going to be more effective than case-by-case campaigns that typically focus on single species or families or other small taxa. Some people are realizing this, so instead of campaigning to protect one group of animals or lobbying NMFS to close or open specific fisheries, they're working with an ecosystem approach. Hence the talk about biomass.

And I'm not saying that as long as the biomass of every living thing in the ocean remains the same, all is well. I'm saying that it just might be better for the oceans if we actually DO toss back unwanted catch rather than hauling it to the shore and turning it into fish meal or fertilizer or whatever. It may seem respectful or nice for us to eat or make terrestrial use of every fish we catch, but to the ocean's ecosystems it may be the worst thing we can do. That's what I'm saying.

BTW, lampreys aren't scavengers. I think you're talking about slime eels (hagfish) like the ones that clean whale skeletons. And FYI, there's actually a sizable market for slime eels. People fish for them using bait-filled barrels that the eels can swim into. The eels are shipped to Korea. They're eaten and the skin is made into a kind of leather for wallets and the like.

BTW, lampreys aren't scavengers. I think you're talking about slime eels (hagfish) like the ones that clean whale skeletons. And FYI, there's actually a sizable market for slime eels. People fish for them using bait-filled barrels that the eels can swim into. The eels are shipped to Korea. They're eaten and the skin is made into a kind of leather for wallets and the like.

Bugger, i was thinking of Hagfish. Watching England play their national sport isn't good for the soul!

I disagree with what you're saying, getting fishermen to throw back more of their dead catch will just mean they stay out longer until they have their holds full of the good stuff, in the end there wont be much left, it may even accelerate the demise of the oceans.

Maybe i'm not getting it, you are putting back the energy of the dead fish back into the ecosystem, in most probably deep water, so a few seagulls may get the odd floater, but the rest will sink, there is unlikey to be too much in the water column to eat this falling feast, so it will ultimately end up on the substrate, and then with Hagfish / Benthos etc. In deeper water i don't think much of this energy would make it back into the pelagic area, so we would have a population explosion of Benthic organisms, and total loss over a time of the pelagic fish. I think the Koreans eating their eels is wonderful, it is a very specific fishing method, i doubt there is much bye-catch, kudos to them.

Please explain if i'm missing something, or point me to somewhere where i can read a paper on it.

I agree that in the abyssal plain the stuff that has drifted down from pelagic fisheries as dead bycatch might take a while to cycle back into the pelagic zone. But most fisheries aren't pelagic and/or over extremely deep water, and most stuff that's dumped overboard (offal, bycatch, worn-out gloves) ends up in relatively shallow waters. This means that whatever doesn't get picked off at the surface or in the water column will reach the bottom and get eaten pretty quickly by fish and arthropods. So, in a way, the surplus of carcasses and guts is a boon to some of those animals (as well as the birds and pelagic animals). Hence the healthy populations of some of these species.

What I'm trying to get at is not that we ought to make fishermen dump more bycatch at sea, but that forcing fishermen to bring in more of what they kill will not necessarily make one bit of sense ecologically (or economically). I think it may feel nice to us--sort of like cleaning one's plate or composting our leftovers--but it may actually be worse for the systems in question than throwing stuff back at the current rate. What I'm wondering is if it is better to throw back what the market doesn't want so that at least that biomass and those nutrients stay in the system. I don't have the answer, but it's a question worth looking at.

I guess in terms of sharks and finning, my point is irrelevant: because if we could force fishermen to bring in whole sharks then the finning market would probably collapse (too much effort, not enough profit) and then there'd be a lot less shark fishing. Or would it still be profitable enough? I don't know. A friend of mine watched a longliner unload in Long Beach a few years ago. The boat wasn't catching enough swordfish, so eventually they'd started keeping all the blue sharks they were catching and filled the hold with sword and blues. They brought the blues in whole so that they could get away with finning them, and then somebody bought the carcasses to turn the meat into that weird pink fish cake stuff that you get in ramen noodles.

The real problem: too many humans.

I agree that in the abyssal plain the stuff that has drifted down from pelagic fisheries as dead bycatch might take a while to cycle back into the pelagic zone. But most fisheries aren't pelagic and/or over extremely deep water, and most stuff that's dumped overboard (offal, bycatch, worn-out gloves) ends up in relatively shallow waters. This means that whatever doesn't get picked off at the surface or in the water column will reach the bottom and get eaten pretty quickly by fish and arthropods. So, in a way, the surplus of carcasses and guts is a boon to some of those animals (as well as the birds and pelagic animals). Hence the healthy populations of some of these species.

 

What I'm trying to get at is not that we ought to make fishermen dump more bycatch at sea, but that forcing fishermen to bring in more of what they kill will not necessarily make one bit of sense ecologically (or economically). I think it may feel nice to us--sort of like cleaning one's plate or composting our leftovers--but it may actually be worse for the systems in question than throwing stuff back at the current rate. What I'm wondering is if it is better to throw back what the market doesn't want so that at least that biomass and those nutrients stay in the system. I don't have the answer, but it's a question worth looking at.

 

I guess in terms of sharks and finning, my point is irrelevant: because if we could force fishermen to bring in whole sharks then the finning market would probably collapse (too much effort, not enough profit) and then there'd be a lot less shark fishing. Or would it still be profitable enough? I don't know. A friend of mine watched a longliner unload in Long Beach a few years ago. The boat wasn't catching enough swordfish, so eventually they'd started keeping all the blue sharks they were catching and filled the hold with sword and blues. They brought the blues in whole so that they could get away with finning them, and then somebody bought the carcasses to turn the meat into that weird pink fish cake stuff that you get in ramen noodles.

 

The real problem: too many humans.

Hehe, i tried that excuse about keeping leftovers in the sea for hand feeding sharks, it didn't go down well! Better than the carcasses from tuna feedng Rats and stray dogs though.....

It seems the topic has drifted.

RealDrew's point : 'if' the same number of sharks that are finned today, were removed instead, we woudl have less biomass feeding deep ocean dwellers instead of our stomachs and land fills. That may be even worse.

-Likely

Counterpoint: If fisherman had to take the entire shark, they would take far fewer and we would be much better off.

-True: When we consider that whole sharks take up lots of space, fishermen face a big dilema. There are other fish stocks that could produce more gross income per kilo than an entire shark. It is just the fins that are so lucrative. In addition, refridgeration becomes an issue. Many sharks are poached by poor local fisherman without any form of refrideration. Since fins are dried, that is not an issue. On the other hand, and entire shark would require substantial refridgeration. Right now many illegal shark operations rely on fisherman in small boats that fish sharks for days, dry the fins then return to the mother ship. You would remove a lot of illegal shark poaching if these poorly equiped fishing boats had to bring entire sharks in.

The bottom line is there is no reasonable basis to advocate shark finning. Marine preserves are devesated by it, the oceans are being depleted, local economies are getting poorer (not wealthier), the health of fish stocks are at risk...all to make a tight network of fin traders wealthy.

Sorry to have taken the topic off on a tangent. Finning definitely wreaks the most havoc on shark populations, of all shark fishing practices. It's just funny how the development of other markets for shark products could, in theory, actually improve the situation, because there might be some incentive for fishermen to bring in whole sharks (for the meat, cartilage, fins, shagreen, jaws, liver, etc.), meaning a longliner might bring in 500 whole sharks instead of the fins from 7,000. But yeah, the economic incentive would have to be there, and that ain't happening unless the values of cartilage and other products approach the dock price of fins. It's staggering to think just how much the exploding Chinese economy is going to change everything. An American's ecological footprint won't seem so supersized in a decade or two.

Daniel the point of all these protests is that many species of shark populations cannot even handle 90% reduction in fishing, so devastated as they are.

The use of shark products for medicinal purposes came about early 90s as the big boom in shark fin consumption. This adds only more pressure. While I'm not naive to think we'd get shark populations back to pre 80s levels, I'd like to hope that it stops extinction happens.