Business & Finance: Shark Shortage

The only bad news from the Pacific last week was the soup-fin shark shortage. After scouring the oceans since the Silurian Age, sharks seemed to be disappearing from the West Coast. The 400 to 500 West Coast fishing boats searching for soup-fin sharks from Seattle to Mexico roamed as far afield as the Navy would let them. But their winter haul (worth over $6 million in a good year) was less than 50% of 1943’s catch.

Shark fishing became big business in 1938 when “Tano” Guaragnella, a fin-sharp San Francisco fish broker, sent a soup-fin shark liver to a chemist, learned that the livers of Galeorhinus zyopterus are the richest known source of Vitamin A.

When Guaragnella ranged the fish docks offering $40 a ton for soup-fin sharks that fishermen had been glad to sell to fish-meal grinders for $10, his competitors figured he had gone shark-shearing mad. But when his secret leaked out, the price soared to $1,500 a ton. By last year, the quantity of soup-fin livers had risen from 40,000 Ib. in 1937 to 1.4 million.

California Packing Corp., Washington Laboratories, Halibut Liver Oil Producers and vitamin-conscious Borden Co. have become big buyers and processors of shark livers. Borden shark-fishing boats are busy off the West Coast of North America and as far south as Chile. Early in April Borden moved into the Gulf, through its purchase of Shark Fisheries, Inc. and Shark Industries, Inc., including a small vitamin-processing plant at Salerno, Fla. This plant will become its base for a vast shark-fishing operation in the Caribbean. If necessary to meet the U.S. demand for 149 trillion U.S.P. units of vitamin A₁ this year, Borden will push on down the East Coast of South America.