FOREST AND STREAM 
1241 
SHALL THE EATEKS BE EATEN? 
IF THE DEMAND FOR SKINS AND FOOD 
CONTINUES, A PEST MAY BE ELIMINATED 
By Edward T. Martin. 
E VERY summer and fall there comes up out 
of the ocean, Atlantic and Pacific alike, 
a plague of sharks numerous as the flies of 
Egypt. Always abundant in southern waters, 
they, instead of decreasing, are growing more 
plentiful every year. The man-eating varieties 
are supposedly found only in the tropics. Yet 
years ago I saw one some 15 feet in length and 
with teeth like those of a cross-cut saw that, 
wounded by some fishermen near the mouth of 
the Penobscot River in Maine, had died and 
drifted ashore. We know what some of a said- 
to-be-harmless variety did recently along the New 
Jersey coast and if many of the leopards of the 
ocean on the Pacific coast, from San Diego to 
San Francisco, are not man-eaters, I believe it 
is because they never had a chance. Isn’t it a 
fact that many kinds of fish, all the pickerel fam¬ 
ily, for example, but for inherited fear of the 
human race, might be as bloody as those eight 
inch fish of the Amazon, which, gathering in 
schools, will pick the bones of a bather clean al¬ 
most before he realizes they are dangerous. 
They tell me two things about the sharks of 
San Francisco Bay, one of which is that they 
are fit to eat; the other that they are entirely 
harmless. The first I have proved to my own 
satisfaction and say without hesitation “take a 
‘dog’ shark, split it down the back, remove what 
few bones there are, skin and fry it, then when 
properly cooked if it is not as good as halibut 
or sole and better than rock cod or salt water 
perch—why I know nothing about sea food.” 
The second proposition I have not been anxious 
to test. Let those who believe the five and six 
foot spotted fellows as well as the smaller “dogs” 
are harmless, go into the water where they most 
do congregate and if the one making such an 
experiment comes out alive and uninjured, then 
I may still hesitate to emulate his example and 
ponder whether he escaped because his theory 
was correct or because of the truth of the saying. 
“A fool for luck.” Should he be brought ashore 
dead or maimed, minus arm or leg, I will doubt 
more than ever if any sharks are safe companions 
to meet in their own element—indeed I will. 
If one of these believers in the pacific inten¬ 
tions of the leopards of the sea could have ex¬ 
perimented with a little fellow, one only five 
feet long, that was caught by the writer Labor 
Day, perhaps he might still say “they are harm¬ 
less,” but again I am a doubter. This one, all 
head and stomach, snapped its jaws with the 
force of a steel trap and would have bitten 
through shoe, flesh and probably bone of one 
whose foot it could have reached, excepting only 
the captain’s, whose left leg was of wood and 
to whom it would have mattered little how much 
the shark bit unless it got hold of the right one. 
Special tackle was used on this occasion, yet 
the strong line several times was strained almost 
to the breaking point. The shark was a dead 
game sport, tangled every line on its side of the 
boat, then tried for the anchor rope, ran out 
nearly all the line, finally sinking and sulking in 
about ten fathoms of water. It was like raising 
the anchor of a lumber schooner to start the 
fish again. 
At last either it tired of the thing pulling at 
Leopard Shark 414 Feet Long. 
its mouth, or else curiosity got the better of 
its judgment, for it rose slowly, came within a 
dozen feet of the boat, fixed its ugly eyes first 
on one and then another of its enemies and 
swam away as strongly as ever. The line fairly 
smoked. It seemed as if something must break. 
If the shark kept on, it surely would escape, but 
it didn’t; it tired and was slowly drawn towards 
the boat just when the battle was about to end 
in its favor. Carefully the line was reeled in 
until the shark was only six feet away, when 
like a flash the gaff descended and the fight was 
over, only it took two men to lift the fish on 
board and then, as already told, his actions were 
far from those of a pacifist. In fact, quite the 
contrary. It was a healthy appetite this shark 
owned. Examination showed its stomach to con¬ 
tain several dozen shrimps, a medium size rock 
cod, several small crabs, two round stones, three 
smelts, besides a considerable quantity of nearly 
digested matter the nature of which it was im¬ 
possible to determine. 
The influx of sharks is due largely to a great 
abundance of other fish on which they feed. Also 
to the fact that they, like many varieties of deep 
sea fish, come to shallow water for breeding 
purposes. “Dog” shark bring forth their young 
alive. The spotted or leopard, lays shell¬ 
less eggs, yellow in color as are the yolks of 
hens’ eggs, and varying in size as to whether 
the shark is large or small. The young when 
born lose no time before commencing to feed. 
They go at it naturally as does a freshly hatched 
chicken scratching for worms. When fishing for 
smelts, baby sharks have been caught which 
could not have been over an hour or two old, 
possibly not even that. The eggs of the leopard, 
oblong rather than round, are anchored to sea¬ 
weed or any kind of marine growth, by long 
tendrils extending from their ends. The mem¬ 
brane serving in place of a shell resembles thin 
rubber in toughness but is lacking in elasticity. 
It is often found on the sea shore by persons 
having no idea what it can be. Should a fisher¬ 
man be asked he will say, “That? Why that’s 
a sailor’s purse,” and the questioner will go away 
as wise as he came. 
Efforts have been made this summer and fall 
to demonstrate the value of these sharks as a 
food product. Only “dog” sharks are eaten. 
“Leopards, larger, stronger, more voracious, 
yield a greater quantity of oil but their flesh is 
too soft and mushy to make them desirable for 
the table. The Fisheries Commission reports 
that pound for pound the dog sharks are as nu¬ 
tritious as many kinds of meat and as all other 
varieties of fish and that “at a cent apiece money 
can be made catching these small sharks.” On 
San Francisco Bay there is a never-failing mar¬ 
ket for sharks of every variety and sting-rays 
as well at about $6 the ton. Three cents for a 
10 pound fish! They are boiled, dried and ground 
into chicken food. Not a large price, to be sure, 
but when it is considered that they are often 
caught by the barge load, from 40 tons up, in a 
single day, this including sting-ray, the harvest 
isn’t so very bad, besides $6 a ton is three times 
the price the Government names as a profitable 
one. Besides the manufacture of chicken food, 
and the fertilizing works, these last in the market 
for all that the chicken food men cannot use, 
there have been at least two other buyers in the 
field for dog sharks, paying a slightly better 
price and getting their pick of the catch. 
Claim is made, with how much truth I can¬ 
not say, that one buyer is canning them. If 
so they are sold under a different name. Sal¬ 
mon? Perhaps. Other fish, carp for instance, 
have been colored and put on the market as 
salmon, so why not sharks? Tuna? Maybe. 
The tuna catch seldom equals the demand. Who 
