3. Utilisation and trade

The basking shark reaches weights of up to seven metric tonnes (it is the second largest fish in the world, after the whale shark Rhincodon typus). The main parts utilised are the liver, which comprises about 17-25% of the body weight and yields 60-75% oil (Phillips 1947, McNally 1976), meat and fins. The cartilage and skin are of secondary importance. The main traditional product of the basking shark fishery was the liver oil. Its use for lighting and other purposes is documented since at least the 17th Century in the UK and presumably took place much earlier here and in other regions. The meat has also been utilised, either fresh or dried, for food or fishmeal, since early fisheries. It was the secondary product of most traditional fisheries, after oil, but is still valuable in some areas. Fins are recorded as a by-product of the Monterey fishery in the 1940s, and were an important product of the Irish fishery by 1960. The increased value of fins during the past decade means that they are now probably the major incentive for continued directed basking shark fisheries in some regions. The cartilage has been used to produce fishmeal, and more recently for medical research and the manufacture of cartilage capsules for the health market. The thick skin can yield high quality leather.

The lack of detailed fisheries landings records and trade data at species level, and for specific shark products, presents a major obstacle to determining precisely which products and what quantity are utilised nationally by fishing nations, and which enter international trade (Rose 1996). However, some information can be obtained from literature, personal communications and TRAFFIC reports on the International Shark Trade. Even where basking shark products are eventually utilised in their country of origin, this may often follow initial export in 'raw form' for processing and re-import as a marketable product.

3.1 National utilisation

Liver oil
The livers were, until recently, the main product of basking shark fisheries, originally mainly to supply domestic markets. Indeed, some fisheries formerly removed the livers from the fish at sea and discarded the remainder of the fish. A large shark can provide about 0.7 t (metric tonnes¹) of oil, but the average is considered to be about 0.4 to 0.5 t per fish. This oil has a very high squalene content (up to 55%, Buranudeen & Richards-Rajadurai 1986), characteristic of deep water sharks, and is therefore primarily of industrial rather than medicinal value. (Liver oil high in vitamin A and D is characteristic of shallow water sharks; the vitamin A content of basking sharks is highest in autumn after a period spent on the surface.) Traditional basking shark fisheries supplied oil for lighting, but it is now used for certain manufacturing processes and for lubrication of machinery. The large amount of oil derived from a single shark has made these fisheries viable in the past, but the liver oil market is presently suffering from competition from the gulper shark Centrophorus granulosus and kitefin shark Dalatias licha fisheries (ICES1995). T he oil is used in Norway for the extraction of squalene and supplies the cosmetic and health supplement markets (Fleming and Papageorgiou 1996). As a result of falling oil prices in recent years (see 3.2), the Scottish fishery was discarding the livers at sea, but landing the flesh and fins. It is uncertain how much of the liver oil landed in most countries is utilised nationally today, but all or most oil landed in the UK in recent years appears to have entered international trade, mainly through export to Norway.

Flesh
The flesh of basking sharks, when not discarded at sea, has been used both to produce fish meal and, dried or fresh, for human consumption. McNally (1976) records that meat was sold at £2.50 to £3 per ton (£2.54-3.05 per metric tonne) in the early 1960s, which made processing uneconomic. Basking shark flesh was sold in Billingsgate market in the 1970s, and in fish and chip shops in Scotland in the 1980s and early 1990s. Prices for the meat were £0.30 to £0.80/kg in the early 1990s (Fleming and Papageorgiou 1996). Chen et al. (1996 in Phipps 1996) give a landing value at fishery markets for whole basking sharks in Taiwan as US$1.10/kg.

Fins
Fins landed in Europe and other fishing nations outside southeast Asia are mainly thought to be directed into the international trade, and are not utilised nationally to any significant extent. Fins landed in China and Japan may be used by domestic markets, or exported for processing. Basking shark fins may be re-imported to any country in processed form, but if no longer whole are unlikely to be recognisable as this species.

Cartilage
Basking shark cartilage is probably only used domestically in small quantities, and may be exported in 'raw' form before being re-imported as a processed product for use in its country of origin. The large size of the basking shark will likely make the processing of its cartilage more cost effective than cartilage of smaller sharks, increasing the demand for this species.

Skin
No information was obtained on present national utilisation of basking shark skin for leather manufacture.

3.2 Legal international trade

Four basking shark products are known to enter the international trade in significant (albeit largely unrecorded) quantities; liver oil, fins, cartilage and meat. However, no customs data are available on quantities of shark fin, cartilage or oil imports and exports by individual species, and most countries which keep any records of trade in sharks separately from other fish, combine all shark products into a single category. It is therefore impossible to determine precisely the volume of basking shark products which enter international trade or from which populations these products originate. The following information was obtained from literature and TRAFFIC surveys.

Liver oil
The value of the oil has declined in recent decades. McNally (1976) records liver oil prices in Ireland as follows: £140/ton in 1947, £90-110 in 1948, £70 in 1949 and up to £500 per ton (£508/metric tonne) in 1974 (due to the high cost of oil imports from the major oil producing countries at this time). Fleming and Papageorgiou (1996) give values of £600/t for liver oil landed in Scotland in the early 1980s, but this had fallen to £230/t in the late 1980s. Fairfax (1998) reports liver prices of £250/t (US$375/t) in the early 1990s, and notes that the liver was no longer landed in the last years of the recent Firth of Clyde fishery in Scotland because the high costs of exporting oil to Norway made exports uneconomic. The Norwegian fishery is reportedly still landing basking shark oil and has been importing large quantities of shark oil (from various species) over the past decade. However, their domestic fishery is apparently now only economic because of the high value of the fins (ICES 1995 quoting Myklevoll). Basking sharks caught incidentally by New Zealand fisheries are processed for their oil and fins, which are thought mainly to be exported. Where data are available for shark oil exports and imports, these do not differentiate between species of origin. Shark oil records may therefore represent products from basking shark, gulper shark, spiny dogfish, kitefin shark and other fisheries.

Norway is the only country that reports information to Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on the shark oil trade. Norwegian imports have greatly exceeded exports in the period 1988 to 1994, but it is not clear whether processed and subsequently re-exported shark oil products will also appear in the Norwegian export statistics, or whether only unprocessed shark oil is recorded. It is extremely difficult to trace exports, imports and re-exports of processed liver oil capsules and other oil products.

Fins
The fins have a very high value in oriental markets. McNally (1976) notes that sales of fins had provided the Achill Island fishery with "a secondary, if relatively small source of income since 1960", when they were exported to Spain from Ireland. By 1970 fins were being exported directly to Hong Kong. Prices paid to fishermen for fins were £3,000/t in the 1970s, but had climbed to £20,000 (US$30,000)/t by 1994 (Fairfax 1998). (These prices are not corrected for the rising price index over this 20 year period, but the nearly 700% rise is significant, with much of this increase occurring in the late 1980s to early 1990s.) Fleming and Papageorgiou (1996) record that fins were exported from Scotland to Norway for US$6/kg (£4/kg) in 1983. Prices then rose, with a particularly rapid increase in the early 1990s, and fins for export were US$26.25/kg (£17.50/kg) in 1994, an increase of over 300% in nine years. Fairfax (1998) reports that the largest quantity of fins yielded by a single shark (a large female) in the recent Firth of Clyde fishery was 92 kg. The fins from a single fish will therefore be worth well over US $1,500 (£1,000), and up to US$2,400 (£1,600) to the fisherman. This high value is the main economic factor now sustaining the Norwegian basking shark fishery (Dr S Myklevoll, in ICES 1995). Norwegian fin exports to Japan have been steadily increasing: 0.096 t of fins were exported in 1992, 7.218 t in 1993, and 26.859 t in 1994 (from letter of Directorate for Nature Management, 21 September 1995, quoted in Castro et al. in preparation).

Prices for fins dried for processing are, of course, much higher. A Norwegian fin processor reported that the April 1996 price for dried basking shark fins was about US$130/kg (£90/kg) (Fleming and Papageorgiou 1996). Some fins might be used nationally by oriental restaurants in the countries of origin, but it is thought that virtually all fins taken from basking sharks in European waters and other areas outside Southeast Asia are likely to enter the international trade; some may later be re-imported in processed form. Lum (1996) reports that basking shark fins imported from Norway are the most expensive available in Singapore, at Sg.$400 (£200 or >US$300) per kilogram (dried), or Sg.$88 (£44) per bowl in restaurants.

Parry-Jones (1996b in Phipps 1996) quotes retail prices supplied by an experienced Hong Kong trader of US$25/kg, US$256/kg and US$330/kg respectively for frozen, dried and processed sets of basking shark fins (a fin set usually comprises two pectoral, dorsal and lower caudal fins). Another trader quoted a price of US$846/kg for a single fin weighing 7.3 kg (US$6,176 for the whole fin), presumed to be from either a basking shark or whale shark. In June 1998, a single 1 m high shark fin, considered likely to be from a basking shark, was on sale in a restaurant just outside Chengdu, Sichuan, China, for 80,000 yuan (slightly less than US$10,000) (Antony Whitten, pers. comm.).

Cartilage
It is impossible to determine the volume of cartilage entering international trade. However, Fleming and Papageorgiou (1996) report that cartilage capsules manufactured and on sale in pharmacies, homeopathic shops and health practitioners in Belgium are labelled as 'ex Ceatarinus maximus pulvis'. If this labelling is accurate, then the cartilage will certainly have been imported to Belgium; there is no basking shark population in the southern North Sea. This product is also exported from Belgium to France, Portugal, Germany and Switzerland.

Meat
Fleming and Papageorgiou (1996) report that the market for basking shark meat exports from Norway to Eastern Europe is increasing; at a 1996 value of about US$1/kg.

3.3 Illegal trade

All known international trade in basking shark products is legal. Illegal trade will only be taking place if products are derived from areas where the species is protected and where it has been taken illegally (e.g. those areas described in section 4.1); there is no evidence of this, but detailed trade records for this species are not kept.

3.4 Actual or potential trade impacts

The high value of basking shark fins in international trade is reportedly the reason why the Norwegian fishery for this species is still viable, now that liver oil prices have fallen (ICES1995). There is not thought to be any significant domestic market in Norway or other European countries for unprocessed basking shark fin, so it is concluded that the international trade in this product is the main impetus for this targeted fishery.

The value of international trade is also likely having a significant impact on mortality from incidental fisheries. As reported by Lien and Fawcett (1986), the presence of a market for basking shark products, including fins for international trade, encourages Newfoundland cod and salmon fishermen to continue to leave their nets in the water when basking sharks are present, risking collision, entanglement and damage to fishing gear. This is because the value of the shark products exceeds the cost of the damage they cause to nets. In the absence of a market for basking shark products, nets will be removed from the water when these fish are known to be in the area. In effect, the international market for basking shark products has turned an incidental fishery into a targeted fishery. The high value of international trade in basking shark fins also encourages the finning of basking sharks caught incidentally in other fisheries, which might otherwise often be released alive.

3.5 Captive breeding for commercial purposes

None possible.

¹ Weights are given in metric tonnes (t) unless otherwise stated.