The fish had been caught accidentally by commercial fishing nets and was auctioned off as a meal at the Plymouth Seafood Festival so as not to go to west. One witness claimed the shark was already dead when it was discovered in the net.
But environmental groups say including the creature in a seafood festival—and hefting it through the streets like prize—sent a terrible message. “As an ocean conservation charity, we do not condone the eating blue shark and were disappointed to see that a blue shark was shown off at the ‘catch of the day’ session,” Helen Gowans of Ocean Rights Trust told Cornwall Live.
“We feel that showing the public how to cook this species and then offering them the chance to eat it at such a widely attended event could be damaging—encouraging intrigue and thus demand for blue shark on people’s plates moving forward.”
A photo of two men raising the shark in the air before a crowd was posted on Visit Plymouth’s official Instagram page. After the controversy surfaced, the post was deleted.
Blue sharks are classified near-threatened globally by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, though there is no limit on catching them in the UK. Living up to 20 years, they typically inhabit deep waters and can migrate as far as from New England to South America.
“In a time and city where we are encouraged to help with the protection and conservation of sharks many people think this is just terrible, especially with shark numbers dwindling,” wrote one person on Facebook, according to the Plymouth Herald.
“Totally out of order, killed and paraded,” added another. “I thought these days were over.”
The festival’s organizers insist they weren’t aware the shark would be on the menu and were “surprised and disappointed” by the incident.
Ben Squire, owner of The Boathouse restaurant, oversaw the selections of seafood auctioned off for the Fishermen’s Mission, a charity supporting fishermen and their families. Squire say he included the tiger shark, rather than discard it, it to raise more money.
“In terms of it being paraded, it certainly was not paraded around,” Squire told Cornwall Live. “I showed the crowd over 20 species of fish… everyone saw these fish, we showed the crowd each fish, including the blue shark. It was not that the blue shark paraded because it wasn’t. It was just shown to the people.”
In February, a Florida man pleaded guilty to animal cruelty after he and his friends filmed themselves shooting a shark, then dragging it behind their speedboat.
The video first surfaced in July 2017, and after an investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Michael Wenzel, Robert Lee Benac and Spencer Heintz were charged.
‘[The shark] is suffocating, beaten on the waves…[the] last moments of its life complete torture," Robert Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research, told WTSP. “They don’t deserve the right to fish.”
Charges against Heintz were dropped, while Wenzel copped a plea and was sentenced to 10 days in jail, 11 months probation and 100 hours of community service.
Benac, who rejected a deal, is due to go on trial this month. If found guilty of animal cruelty, he could face10 years in prison.
