186 Man and Shark 



sharks also had livers rich in vitamin A. In 1944, this company was taken 

 over by one of the best-known brand names in the country, a firm 

 whose trademark was a happy, personable cow named Elsie— the Borden 

 Company, largest processor of dairy products in America. Probably be- 

 cause they did not want to get their customers' image of gentle Elsie 

 confused with the fierce visage of Jack Shark, officials of the Borden 

 Company did not ballyhoo their connection with sharks. It will un- 

 doubtedly come as a surprise to many a milk-drinker to learn that 

 sharks as well as cows provided him with his vitamin-enriched milk. 



The Borden Company is reputed to have invested at least a million 

 dollars in the enterprise. Its shark fleet grew to 40 vessels, many of them 

 equipped with refrigerated holds and capable of staying at sea for 

 periods as long as six months. Instead of nets, the Borden ships usually 

 relied on long-line fishing. Steel cables stretching out almost two miles 

 were unwound from the bigger ships. Strung from the cables were large 

 baited hooks about 40 feet apart. The cables, marked with buoys, were 

 set out one day and hauled in the following day— and so were the sharks. 

 As a power winch slowly brought in the cable, a man stood at the bow 

 of the boat with a big wooden mallet. If a shark were still alive when 

 gafi'ed, it was clouted on the snout and stunned, and a boom swung it 

 into the hold. It could then thrash in the hold until it expired. 



It was arduous but profitable work. Off Salerno, Florida, where Bor- 

 den's shark-catching eventually was concentrated, as many as 341 

 sharks were caught in a single day by four boats. The weights of in- 

 dividual sharks ranged as high as 1,500 pounds. In one month, 1,972 

 sharks were brought in. One boat brought in a single catch of 182 

 sharks. 



Borden also joined in the West Coast shark boom. But from the 

 relentless overfishing of sharks there soon resulted a dramatic decline 

 in Soupfins. In 1944, almost 53,000,000 pounds of shark were caught. 

 That was the peak. Soupfins became more and more scarce. The price 

 of their livers held up, though, finally reaching a giddy summit of 

 $14.25 a pound. 



At a small fish-marketing and processing firm in Provincetown, 

 Massachusetts, the production of oil from livers had been a minor side- 

 line. Suddenly, the company was turning out more than $2,000,000 

 worth of shark oil a year. Borden opened its own plant for the ex- 

 traction of shark-produced vitamin A, which was added to dairy prod- 

 ucts. By 1946, three cents of every dollar Borden earned came from 

 non-food products and, for most of this, Borden's stockholders could 

 thank the maligned shark, not Elsie. 



During the war, shark liver oil supplied approximately 75 per cent 

 of the vitamin A produced in the U.S. Though shipyards were re- 



