Shark Meat (Gary Cases)
During the past five years, Tirso’s Fish Product in Lapu-Lapu City has been buying and processing a variety of fish – including shark meat – for fish balls, squid balls and seafood tempura.
A female manager yesterday guided Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza in a tour of the plant.
She told the mayor that shark meat is valued for its white flesh, its texture – “firmer” than bangus and budboron – and affordable price – P50 to P70 a kilo.
The owner Tirso Atillo was out of town during the inspection.
“If only they had known it was a prohibited species they wouldn’t have bought it,” Radaza said later.
The plant manager said a “suki” supplier in Siaton, Negros Oriental had loaded the company truck with fish and thresher shark meat. The vehicle, now impounded at the Capitol, was intercepted on June 12 by the province’s anti-illegal fishing task force.
After the seizure, according to the manager, Tirso’s Fish Product “no longer uses” shark meat.
The cut-up meat of about 14 large thresher sharks or 470 kilos was confiscated, and buried in a vacant lot at the Cebu provincial jail, with the other seized buckets of fish fed to the inmates.
Capitol officials are expected to file charges for violation of a 2012 Cebu provincial ordinance which bans the “hunting, catching, possession, transportation, sale, buying, distribution, wounding or killing” of thresher sharks.
Provincial Ordinance 2012-05 or the Provincial Fisheries and Aquatic Ordinance of Cebu also protects whale sharks and manta rays.
HARMLESS, HUNTED
Threshers sharks, which have distinctive long fin tails, eat smaller fish but don’t prey on humans. Malapascua Island’s fame as an international dive destination in Daanbantayan town is largely due to the attraction of seeing thresher sharks that frequent the Monad Shoal.
With its numbers dwindling worldwide due to overfishing, thresher sharks are also classified as “vulnerable” to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which sets trade restrictions on protected species.
Around the world, sharks are hunted for their liver oil, meat for consumption, skin, and especially their fins, which are prized in shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy.
This continues even though the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) in the United States issued an advisory against eating shark meat because sharks have a higher risk of accumulating methyl mercury, which causes nervous system disorders.
Shark conservationists have difficulty campaigning for its protection because there is no national law that covers it.
At the processing plant in barangay Basak, it was hard to determine the kind of fish used for fish balls.
Piles of ground up white flesh, packed in containers, were laid out on stainless steel tables. There was no sign of fish parts, heads or fins lying around.
No photos of the premises were allowed to be taken.
Basak barangay captain Isabelo Darnayla who accompanied the mayor said the plant uses several fish varieties like “Carajo”, “Banghotin”, “Lamon-Lamon”, “Balila” for fish balls and tempura.
“Dalupapa” is used for squid balls. These fish meats are also bought for P50 to P70 per kilo from the provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“Limpyo man hino-on ang ilang pagkahimo sa ilang mga produkto, ang ilang mga empleyado nagsul-ob og mga apron ug caps” (The production process is clean and the workers are wearing aprons and caps) said Mayor Radaza.
NO BFAR GUIDELINES
Radaza said that based on her conversation with the manager, the plant staff and owner were not aware of any ban on using shark meat.
The guidelines they received from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) does not include thresher sharks.
True, there is no national law protecting sharks but a global campaign to stop the wide-scale hunting of sharks for their fins and meat has been going on for years.
Cebu province’s ordinance is one of the few in the Philippines protecting thresher sharks and whale sharks, both species with high tourism value.
A pending PB proposal seeks to include three species of hammerhead sharks after CDN reported the sale of one juvenile shark at the Daanbantayan market in April.
Some Cebu resorts and hotels, including Imperial Palace Waterpark Resort in Mactan and Waterfront Lahug Hotel announced in May that its restaurants would no longer serve shark fin soup or other shark delicacies after CDN ran front page stories and photos of a hammerhead shark displayed at the wet market of Daanbantayan town and thresher sharks being butchered for P50 a kilo by the shore of barangay Tangke in Talisay City.
The photos were posted on Facebook by private citizens who were saddened by the sight.
After her tour yesterday, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Radaza said there was not enough reason to stop the operation of Tirso’s Fish Products since they had complete papers, including the sanitation permit from City hall.
But she said if the factory is caught still processing shark meat, it could be a ground for closure.
Tirso’s Fish Products has been operating in sitio Sudtonggan, barangay Basak for more than five years. Business has been doing well, said the personnel.
Related Stories:
Truck with 14 cut-up thresher sharks for fishballs, tempura seized
Sharks for sale: Hammerheads, thresher sharks still hunted in Daanbantayan for fins, meat
Truck transporting thresher sharks seized in Naga City, Cebu