INTRODUCTION 



Attention has been drawn frequently to the fact that 

 the Caribbean area is largely dependent on imports for 

 one of its chief sources of first class protein, fish. The 

 Anglo- American Caribbean Commission, therefore, has 

 from the very start taken a deep interest in encouraging 

 the development of local fisheries. Among the plans 

 formulated, the commercial possibilities of shark fishing 

 occupy an important place. The first West Indian Con- 

 ference at Barbados in March, 1944, emphasized that the 

 possibilities of shark fishing in the Caribbean area had 

 not been fully explored, and recommended that accurate 

 information on this subject should be collected and dis- 

 tributed. This pamphlet attempts to set out, for the 

 benefit of the people and fishermen of the Caribbean, the 

 best available information on sharks — their varieties, 

 location, by-products, commercial and nutritional value, 

 and the methods of catching, processing and marketing. 

 them. 



After having looked over the Caribbean carefully, we 

 believe that there are many places in this area where 

 people can make money fishing for sharks. Practically 

 every part of a shark has a value. For instance, the hide 

 produces good leather; the liver produces oil often rich 

 in Vitamin A, while the fins of all except the nurse shark 

 bring a high price for soup making; the white meat, 

 either fresh or salted, of most kinds of sharks, is a whole- 

 some human food and the rest of the meat can be con- 

 verted into animal feed and fertilizer. Good prices can 

 be obtained for all these products, and it is therefore sur- 

 prising that, with the exception of Cuba, commercial 

 shark fishing hardly exists in the Caribbean. 



There are two main reasons why shark fishing has not 

 progressed in the Caribbean. In the first place, unless 

 shark products are handled on the correct lines, the profit 

 is very disappointing. In the second place, most of the 

 fishermen who can enter into this trade cannot wait for 

 their money; and because of poor products, with corre- 

 spondingly low returns, coivpWl with lack of available 

 information as to how to do bet( er, local capital has not 



