Commercial Shark Fishing in the Caribbean Area 47 



be obtained from United Kingdom Trade Commission- 

 ers or local Colonial Governments and from the nearest 

 consular office of the country to which the shark hides 

 are to be shipped. At present there is no United States 

 import duty on shark hides. There is no United King- 

 dom import duty on undressed hides; however, there is 

 a 15% duty on dressed hides. 



Estimating What Hides Are Worth 6 



Shark hides are bought on measurement and the 

 method of measurement is indicated in Figures 8 and 9. 

 The part of the hide over the tail itself and that over the 

 head where the pores are is valueless. These parts are 

 not recorded in the measurements nor paid for so that it 

 is a waste of time skinning them off. The Leopard Shark 

 and the Sawshark have two keels or bony ribs, one on 

 each side running from the tail along the body for 4 to 

 16 inches. This part of the hide of these two sharks is 

 valueless and should be cut off. 



Defects That Reduce Value of Hides 



(a) Holes. 



These may be due to fighting scars, harpoon 

 scars and butcher cuts. There is nothing you 

 can do about the fighting scars, but the way to 

 avoid butcher cuts has been described under 

 skinning and fleshing. 



(b) Sour spots. 



This really means that the hide is rotten in 

 some place. The most frequent causes of sour 

 spots are not skinning soon enough after death, 

 not curing quickly or well enough, poor quality 

 salt or contact with fresh water. 



(c) Burnt hides. 



Deep wrinkles in the hides camiot be removed 

 during the tanning process, and good market- 

 able leather cannot be produced from hides with 

 deep wrinkles. (Do not confuse these deep 



This section has also been taken from The Shark Fishing Industry, p. "6. 



