One of the most consumed fish in the country, the dog is, in fact, the commercial name for a set of animal cuts that include several species of sharks and even rays. This is what experts say in the study of elasmobranchs (a group of sharks and rays).
To promote the theme, the NGO Sea Shepherd Brasil recently created the Cação É Tubarão campaign.
Dogfish consumption poses serious environmental problems, say activists, as these animals are severely threatened around the world. Populations have been declining since the 1990s, and about 40% of species known today are at risk of extinction.
According to data collected by Sbeel (Brazilian Society for the Study of Elasmobranchs), Brazil is the main consumer and importer of dog meat in the world.
“We have a production of 20 thousand tons per year of shark and ray meat and, since 2012, we have also imported the same amount, so we doubled our demand”, says Rodrigo Barreto, researcher at Cepsul/ICMBio and executive secretary of the Sbeel.
Despite the high consumption, about 7 in 10 Brazilians do not know that dogfish is shark or ray meat, indicates a survey of more than 5,000 people carried out by the entity in August this year.
“Under the umbrella of ‘dogfish’ we have species that are not consumed anywhere else in the world, only in countries like Mexico, Brazil and others where there is a lack of information, making these places centers for the storage of the meat of these animals “, says Barreto.
Recently, the proposal to purchase dogfish meat to supply school lunches in the municipal education system in São Paulo was criticized by Sea Shepherd. In reaction, the NGO filed an online petition to overturn the notice. Until November 10, when the trading session was postponed for the first time, the text had gathered more than 1,300 signatures.
In a note sent on Tuesday night (23), the city of SP, through the Municipal Education Department, informed that the tender in question was revoked, and the decision, published in the Official Gazette of last Wednesday (24). The management did not comment on the reasons for the withdrawal.
Since 2009, Brazil, like other countries have since adopted laws to prohibit the practice known as finning, the name given to the removal of shark fins for sale in specialized markets, while the rest of the animal’s body —the “cigar”— is thrown into the sea.
However, with the ban, countries that consumed the meat began to receive in their ports the whole animals, no longer the carcasses. The fins are then usually cut and sold, mainly to the Chinese market, where they can cost up to US$ 5 thousand (about R$ 28 thousand), and the meat is used for consumption.
“The finning ban did not inhibit the fishing of these animals, on the contrary, it generated a logistical change for fishing companies, which now need to make more trips to the coast of countries that are interested in shark meat. And the cost is low because they profit on top of the fins”, says Nathalie Gil, Executive Director of Sea Shepherd Brazil.
As the fish reach the final consumer already clean and in the form of slices, it is more difficult to differentiate one species from another. “And in many cases sellers cut animals into different shapes to mask their appearance that allows identification,” says Gil.
This is what happens, for example, with the hammerhead shark, a species included in the ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation) list as critically endangered. It is common to see the animal in fish markets with its head cut diagonally to disguise it.
As there is no distinction between the species in the product, which is popularly called dogfish, inspection by bodies such as IBAMA or the Ministry of Agriculture is hampered. Gil also explains that the scrapping of institutions and the practice of self-inspection on vessels aggravate the situation.
“There are not enough financial resources from inspection agencies, such as Ibama, to carry out the genetic sequencing of all the species that make up the ‘dog meat.’ fishing and do not report”, he says.
For Otto Bismarck, biologist and professor at Unesp from the São Paulo coast and president of Sbeel, even the consumption considered “sustainable” of sharks and rays should not exist. “There is no sustainable fishing when talking about sharks and rays because, as they are large predatory animals, it is the same thing as saying that we are going to create the hunting industry [legalizada] of the jaguar. It’s unfeasible,” he says.
Bismarck remembers that these are top-of-the-range animals and have biological characteristics that end up accelerating their population decline even further when they are fished in a predatory way.
“These are species with low production of offspring, long gestation period, they take time to reach reproductive age. So the math is simple: if more individuals die than are born, there will be a population imbalance”, he explains.
The reduction in shark populations has consequences for marine ecosystems, as with fewer of them, the animals they feed on grow explosively.
The rays are even more threatened, explains the biologist, because the approximately 30 species of fresh water that exist in South America have suffered from environmental degradation. “In addition, there is a specific demand for ray meat in the South and Northeast regions of the country, reducing these populations”, he says.
In addition to the environmental problem, sharks and rays accumulate heavy metals and other elements in the body that can be harmful to health.
The FDA (the agency that regulates food and drugs in the US) contraindicates the consumption of dogfish by pregnant women, nursing mothers or children, due to the high content of mercury present in these fish, which can affect their development.
“The problem is that each country adopts a reference value, and that of Brazil is two to three times what is recommended in the United States”, says Barreto.
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