ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



BULLETIN 'C 14 5 



Published by the New York Zoological Society 



Vol. XX I 1 



NOVEMBER. 191! 



No. 6 



MAKING USE OF THE SHARK 



By C. H. Ton xsend 



THE shark has at last found a champion. 

 The tanner informs us that the shark 

 is a most useful fish and is rapidly increas- 

 ing in value to man. The tanner himself did not 

 know this until recently, but the Ocean Leather 

 Company of New York is now passing five 

 hundred shark skins into its tannery every day 

 and its president says every large tanned shark 

 skin is worth about thirty dollars. We have 

 seen the tannery, the shark skins, the piles of 

 tanned shark leather, and are informed that the 

 leather trade, is buying the product for the mak- 

 ing of shoes, traveling bags, pocket books, furni- 

 ture coverings and other purposes. 



The tannery, which is devoted exclusively to 

 the manufacture of leather from the skins of 

 sharks and other marine forms, is supplied from 

 four shark fishing stations, with a total catch 

 of over five hundred sharks a day. The supply 

 of sharks at the stations already established is 

 plentiful and there are no signs of diminution. 

 On the contrary, the past year's work indicates 

 that the increase of the catch is only a matter 

 of additional stations and nets. Where the 

 sharks all come from, the fishing gangs don't 

 know, but the nets are full of them every 

 morning. 



Additional land has been secured for the en- 

 largement of the tanner}' with the view to in- 

 creasing its capacity to two thousand sharks a 

 day. 



Many of the sharks being taken at the sta- 

 tions in Florida and North Carolina are of 

 large sine, six of those captured exceeding 

 twenty-eight feet in length. The skin of a very 

 large shark yields more leather than that of an 

 ox, and the leather is available for similar uses. 



Should the shark catchers get an occasional 



basking shark, or a whale-shark like the forty- 

 footer pictured in the Btlletin for November 

 1913, they would have a hide equal in square 

 feet to those of several oxen. 



The leather now being derived from the sea 

 is therefore an important contribution to the 

 supply derived from land animals, and promises 

 to be still greater. We must now learn to re- 

 gard the rapacious shark as a valuable resource, 

 capable of great commercial exploitation. 



The extensive utilization of the shark has 

 another bearing quite aside from the value of 

 the products derived from it. The shark is 

 carnivorous and is enormously destructive to food 

 fishes. With world-wide shark fisheries in oper- 

 ation, there should follow an increasing relief 

 from the damage sharks do to the fishing indus- 

 tries. The extent of their ravages is scarcely 

 imagined by those not directly acquainted with 

 them. In some parts of the world they destroy 

 more fishes than are caught for food, while the 

 destruction of nets and other fishing gear is 

 enormous. 



Along our North Atlantic coast sharks find 

 their way into the large pound nets every sum- 

 mer, devouring quantities of fishes and often lib- 

 erating the entire catch by tearing holes in the 

 nets. 



The fishermen have their revenge and also 

 some compensation, for the sharks now cap- 

 tured in New York and New Jersey pound nets 

 are sent to the New York market. 



Shark leather is available for many uses, ac- 

 cording to species and size. The skins of all 

 sharks are thick and strong. When tanned they 

 are pliable like other leathers. The skins of 

 young sharks make very soft and handsome 

 leather. The leather is finished in varying 



