Shark Meat Fed To Students: Brazil’s Hidden School Lunch Scandal

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What if the fish on your child's
school lunch tray was endangered?

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Shark loaded with toxic chemicals.

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How would you feel about that?

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Well, that's been the topic of article
series from Mongabay News where they

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uncovered thousands of tons of shark meat
purchases in Brazil's public institutions.

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That's schools, that's elderly
care, facilities and prisons.

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Something that is concerning is
the amount of institutions we're

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looking at over 5,900 institutions
where they're serving shark meat.

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This is something that is very concerning
because some of the shark meat is angel

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sharks, which is an endangered species,
and it's mislabeled as angel fish.

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So you think angel fish, like you
go into an aquarium and you look at

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angel fish, you're like, oh, okay.

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Well, those are found on reefs and they're
found in tropical areas, but we don't

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really know if they're endangered or not.

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Or there's some that are and some
that aren't, but it's probably fine.

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No, this is Angel Sharks, not angel fish.

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Angel sharks.

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And they're being served at schools.

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Now we look at the public health
perspective of it and you know,

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sharks are known to have elevated
levels of mercury and arsenic.

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So there's a lot of problems with having,
you know, shark as your lunch meal each

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and every day while you're at school.

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And we're gonna be talking about why
this is so problematic and why things

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need to change and what these articles
have actually sparked in Brazil.

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It definitely sparked a debate and we're
gonna hear about it from Philip Jacobson,

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who is one of the journalists who covered
this article, and he's here to talk

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about the process, how it all came to
be, what he discovered during that time,

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and what the articles have done in Brazil
in sparking this debate on this episode

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of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

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Let's start the show.

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Hey everybody.

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Welcome back to another exciting episode
of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.

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This is the podcast where you find
out what's happening with the ocean,

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how you can speak up for the ocean,
and what you can do to live for

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a better ocean by taking action.

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On today's episode, we've
got a special one for you.

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You know, normally I cover
Mongabay news articles.

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I do that quite often.

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It's something that I really enjoy
because Mongabay News puts out

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really great original articles,
investigative reporting, beat reporting.

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It's just a lot of fun, entertaining,
but also very knowledgeable.

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I'm learning things all the time,
especially in places around the world

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where you don't hear about oceans, about
wildlife, about forests and so forth,

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and it's something that's really great.

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Now, I am not being
sponsored by Monga Bay.

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I literally just enjoy.

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Their articles, and I'm very honored
to be able to have one of the

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journalists, Philip Jacobson, who was
spearheaded this series of articles

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on the shark meat that's served
in Brazilian public institutions.

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It really sparked a topic where
he looked at the procurement

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announcements that were happening.

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They have to be public, they have
to be transparent in Brazil, and

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he started going through them and
started noticing specific patterns

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that were considered shark meat.

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You're gonna hear about
that in the interview.

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How he discovered that and what he wanted
and where that led him into revealing what

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was happening in these public institutions
and how much shark meat is being

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consumed, and how non-transparent that
part is, that procurement transparent,

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but not what sharks are being brought
in, what sharks are being consumed, how

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they're being consumed and so forth.

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So there's a lot of things that we're
gonna go through in this article in

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Philip Jacobson, who's a journalist at
Mongabay News, who's based in Thailand,

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is joining us to be able to talk about.

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So here is the interview with Philip.

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Talking about shark meat in
public institutions in Brazil.

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Enjoy the interview and
I will talk to you after.

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Hey Philip, welcome to the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

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Are you ready to talk about shark
meat in Brazilian kids lunches?

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This is kind of crazy.

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Are you ready to talk about that?

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I most certainly am.

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Thanks so much for having me.

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Uh, very happy to be here.

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I'm happy to have you here, Philip.

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Uh, this is something that,
uh, I've been excited to have.

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'cause first of all, we're gonna find
out in just a sec, but you are one of

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the journalists that work at Monga Bay.

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Monga Bay is one of my favorite,
uh, in like internet sites that

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we have on environmental news.

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Uh, as I've told you right before,
we recorded, uh, we cover it a lot

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here on the podcast and I, if, if
anybody is on our newsletter, we

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see at least a one Monga Bay article
pretty much five days a week.

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Uh, so it's always great to be
able to have someone on in person.

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I think Eric Hoffner was the
last one who was on here.

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Um, but it was, it was great
to be able to have you on here.

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'cause we're gonna be talking
about a specific story, actually,

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a series now, a three part
story that has a, an interesting

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result from the first two parts.

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Um, 'cause I was just posted as,
as we're recording today, just,

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just up today, um, on, you know,
lunch meat, having shark meat.

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Really, it's, it's, it's, uh, kids are
having shark meat for their lunches in

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Brazil, which is pretty much like, I
feel like, you know, from North America.

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That sounds really out there, but there
are kids programs that have fish in it

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because it's such a good protein source.

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Um, but this one is with shark meat
in it and I think it's interesting

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of what that shark meat can do.

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Is it really safe?

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We're gonna find out all of that,
um, with the story and how it

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developed, uh, and really go through
that journalistic process, which I'm

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really excited about 'cause I'm very
interested in that kind of stuff too.

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But before we begin with all that,
Philip, why don't you just let us

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know who you are and what you do?

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Uh, yeah.

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Thanks a lot Andrew.

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Um, so I'm Philip Jacobson.

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Um, I'm an American journalist
living in, currently based in

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Thailand, Chiang, my Thailand.

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And uh, I'm an editor and
a reporter for Mongabay.

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Mongabay is a, it's an
environmental news site.

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Um, I first joined in 2015.

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I was covering in Indonesia at the time.

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I lived there for quite some time.

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And um, back then it was maybe 20 people.

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Um, today it's, it's about 120
people, so, um, incredible.

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It's, uh, yeah, it's grown a lot.

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Uh, you don't see that a lot in,
in journalism these days, but, um,

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manga Bay is a nonprofit, uh, news
outlet, so we get a lot of, we got

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our funds from donor foundations,
private donors, that sort of thing.

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Um, so yeah, we've got bureaus in, um,
Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia,

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Indonesia, um, we have an Oceans Desk.

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Um, and so, yeah, so I, I
embarked on this project.

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Uh, it was part of a, uh, a
fellowship with the Pulitzer Center.

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Okay.

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Which is a big funder
in the journalism space.

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And, uh, the project was, uh, to, uh,
investigating the global shark trade.

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So that's where this all started.

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And that's, that's huge.

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Uh, like, I mean, that's not like
a, a small problem, you know?

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And we know this is an
international problem.

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It's some, it's something worldwide.

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From, from you as a journalist.

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Have you Al, had you always wanted
to be an environmental journalist

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or even a journalist at all?

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Yeah, I mean, I came to it
through, uh, through journalism.

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Um, okay.

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Not necessarily environmental journalism.

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Um, so I grew up in
Chicago, um, LA and Chicago.

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And, uh, in, in my high school newspaper,
I worked on the high school newspaper.

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I was editor in chief in my high
school newspaper as a senior.

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It's like, is how, you know, a lot of
journalists get their start, I guess.

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Yeah.

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Um, college, I, you know, I majored in
journalism and then, uh, after graduation,

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I, uh, I was looking for, uh, looking for
a job and, uh, I wanted to live abroad.

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Mm-hmm.

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So, uh, I found a job as a copy
editor at the Jakarta Globe.

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Okay.

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Which is, uh, yeah, it's an English
language paper in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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So, uh, I went there, had that job
for a year, and then, you know,

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I was there as a copy editor.

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You're reading the,
uh, the news every day.

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And, um, it's a great, uh, it's a
great introduction to a country.

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As a journalist.

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You start to get a sense of the
current events and the issues.

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And over the course of that year, I
started to, you know, I started to think

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if I could, if I could learn the language
and kind of get outta the capitol, um,

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you know, I could, there, there's so many
stories to report and that's what I did.

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Um, spent a couple years freelancing.

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Um, had a part-time job with, uh, tempo
Magazine, which is an Indonesian magazine.

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They do a lot of investigative
work and, uh, at tempo I started

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doing some environmental stories.

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Um, Indonesia, it's got, you
know, a ton of rainforest.

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Mm-hmm.

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A ton of biodiversity.

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They've also got a lot of industries
that are, you know, causing

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deforestation and biodiversity loss.

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Things like the palm oil
industry, pulp and paper

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industry, um, that sort of thing.

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So I covered that a bit of tempo.

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And then job at Mongabay opened
up in 2015 and, uh, applied for

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it, ended up getting it, and yeah.

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Uh, ever since I've, uh, I've
really enjoyed working in Manga Bay.

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It's a great place to work and, uh,
you know, we have an opportunity

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to do, to do journalism like this.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm proud of the story
and, um, I'm excited to talk about it.

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It feels like it's such a
unique experience to be able

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to do journalism abroad.

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You know, growing up in North
America, like I live in Canada,

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you, you grew up in, in, in the
States, there's this protection

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that is afforded to journalists.

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You know, if you work within North
America, let's say, um, we've seen a

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lot of journalists, like, I think a lot
of the journalists who cover war areas.

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Obviously there's danger in that and,
and we've seen it, uh, recently in,

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in, in different areas around the world
where journalists are, are getting hurt.

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And I know for con from a conservationist
standpoint, scientists and

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conservationists who are doing work
abroad in a lot of different countries,

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uh, whether it be in South America,
central America, uh, Southeast Asia, I,

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you know, they don't have necessarily
the protections that would be afforded

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to them in the, in Canada or the US
if they work on specific, uh, areas.

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What's it like to work.

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As a journalist that's, that's originally
from North America, to go over to

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places like Indonesia and Thailand
to do the work that you were doing.

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'cause some of these stories
that are, that are posted on

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Monga Bay are not necessarily
like, oh, look at this country.

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They're doing a great job at fisheries,
or they're doing a great job.

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Some of them are very investigative
journalists, the journalism pieces,

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and, um, they can call out some things,
you know, that, that they see, that you

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guys see as, as a problem and so forth.

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Are you ever worried in, in
that case, or have you ever had

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any problems in those areas?

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Uh, you know, in terms of like,
threats, threats to your, your

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personal, like personal safety?

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Yeah, so it's an interesting question.

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Um, you know, manga Bay operates in a
lot of different contexts, so it's kind

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of different depending on the country.

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But, um, yeah, as you've, as
you've, as you've noted, um, in

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some countries it's, it's certainly
harder to operate than others.

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Um.

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If the dynamic can shift a bit, depending
on if you're a foreign journalist or a

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national in that particular country, um,
you know, foreigners can be deported.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, but locals can be, you know, messed
around with in, uh, in other ways.

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So, um, you know, sometimes you
do an investigation, you know, a

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company might threaten to sue you.

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That's happened on stories I've worked on.

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Um, you know, I've never
been threatened personally.

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Right.

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But, um, I did, um, I did spend a few
days in prison once, uh, in Indonesia.

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So, um Oh, wow.

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Yeah.

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That's, uh, that back in 2020.

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That's been interesting.

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It was, it was very interesting.

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00:10:58,225 --> 00:11:00,515
Most interesting experience
I never wanna have again.

226
00:11:00,775 --> 00:11:01,635
Yes, yes, yes.

227
00:11:01,965 --> 00:11:02,755
Let's stay outta there.

228
00:11:03,615 --> 00:11:09,180
But it was very interesting
and, um, you know, um, it's, um.

229
00:11:09,855 --> 00:11:14,084
You can often work with local journalists,
um, in a, uh, in, in a, in an effective

230
00:11:14,084 --> 00:11:15,829
way, a foreigner and a local mm-hmm.

231
00:11:16,005 --> 00:11:18,165
Um, can often be a potent combination.

232
00:11:18,225 --> 00:11:23,475
Um, you know, I came to Southeast Asia
working for an English language newspaper.

233
00:11:23,475 --> 00:11:27,525
That is a, uh, it's, it's a way
that a lot of Western journalists

234
00:11:27,584 --> 00:11:29,204
get into foreign correspondence.

235
00:11:29,235 --> 00:11:32,954
Um, um, you know, there used to be,
uh, two English language newspapers

236
00:11:32,954 --> 00:11:40,334
in Cambodia, um, publications in
Myanmar, um, Indonesia, Thailand.

237
00:11:40,454 --> 00:11:43,454
So it's, it's a bit, some of
those have folded in the past

238
00:11:43,454 --> 00:11:45,314
couple years, um, which is sad.

239
00:11:45,495 --> 00:11:45,584
Mm-hmm.

240
00:11:45,824 --> 00:11:49,574
Because a lot of the people I know
who've, um, gone on to, to pretty

241
00:11:49,574 --> 00:11:53,505
impressive careers in, um, foreign
correspondence got their start at

242
00:11:53,505 --> 00:11:57,045
places like the Cambodia Daily or the
PanAm Pen Post, or the Jakarta Globe.

243
00:11:57,464 --> 00:11:57,555
Mm-hmm.

244
00:11:57,795 --> 00:12:01,454
Um, but, you know, certainly, uh, my
friends who worked at the Cambodian

245
00:12:01,454 --> 00:12:04,485
publications who would often be a
foreigner and a Cambodian journalist

246
00:12:04,485 --> 00:12:06,975
kind of working together, so, uh, gotcha.

247
00:12:06,975 --> 00:12:07,964
That, that can work pretty well.

248
00:12:08,444 --> 00:12:08,985
Um.

249
00:12:09,405 --> 00:12:13,005
And that's what we did in, um, in
this story, uh, the Shark Meat story,

250
00:12:13,065 --> 00:12:16,185
uh, my colleague Carla Mendez, who's,
uh, who's a really great Brazilian

251
00:12:16,185 --> 00:12:19,005
journalist based in Rio de Janeiro,
we worked on this story together.

252
00:12:19,665 --> 00:12:23,985
Um, so, um, yeah, that was a
new experience for me in Brazil.

253
00:12:23,985 --> 00:12:27,885
But, um, uh, I think it's, uh, you
know, possible to operate there.

254
00:12:27,945 --> 00:12:28,935
So, yeah.

255
00:12:28,935 --> 00:12:29,505
No, that's good.

256
00:12:29,505 --> 00:12:30,015
That's good to hear.

257
00:12:30,015 --> 00:12:30,855
'cause you just never know.

258
00:12:30,855 --> 00:12:31,155
Right.

259
00:12:31,155 --> 00:12:34,575
And, and obviously we don't want,
uh, we don't want anybody to get

260
00:12:34,575 --> 00:12:37,185
to get hurt and they wanna be
able to do your job effectively.

261
00:12:37,515 --> 00:12:41,235
Uh, you know, and in this case,
you're, you're protecting, uh, you

262
00:12:41,235 --> 00:12:42,855
know, people who are vulnerable kids.

263
00:12:42,885 --> 00:12:43,155
Right.

264
00:12:43,155 --> 00:12:44,805
Which is, which is really important.

265
00:12:45,435 --> 00:12:49,065
Before we get into this particular
story, uh, something I've always

266
00:12:49,065 --> 00:12:50,955
been interested in is how.

267
00:12:52,140 --> 00:12:55,199
Do you develop these types
of stories like on Monga Bay?

268
00:12:55,199 --> 00:12:58,079
Because there's something
different about Monga Bay than

269
00:12:58,079 --> 00:13:00,030
your, your other news reports.

270
00:13:00,030 --> 00:13:03,300
I mean, one is very, it's all
environmentally focused, right?

271
00:13:03,300 --> 00:13:08,699
It's so, it's whether it's, uh,
forest like RA rainforests or, um,

272
00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:13,829
you know, uh, you know, shark meat
or ocean focused or wildlife focused.

273
00:13:14,100 --> 00:13:18,270
It's, it's pretty much has an
environmental, uh, topic or focus, right?

274
00:13:18,569 --> 00:13:22,500
Um, but it's, it's, it's just,
there's, it's just unique.

275
00:13:22,500 --> 00:13:27,600
It's, these are original stories which
are hard to come by, uh, these days.

276
00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:29,850
And, but they're deep,
they're not just like.

277
00:13:30,314 --> 00:13:34,005
Oh, I'm gonna think of a topic and
I'm gonna just write, you know, to

278
00:13:34,005 --> 00:13:36,824
be honest, I, I do that sometimes.

279
00:13:36,824 --> 00:13:39,615
Like, I'll read a Manga Bay news
article and I'll be like, oh, I'm

280
00:13:39,615 --> 00:13:43,455
gonna use that as a basis to talk
about another particular subject.

281
00:13:43,455 --> 00:13:47,085
But you guys, when you put a, a
story together, this is not a story.

282
00:13:47,085 --> 00:13:48,795
You just think of that
day and then write it.

283
00:13:48,885 --> 00:13:53,085
This is something, sometimes it could
be months, if not years, uh, weeks,

284
00:13:53,085 --> 00:13:56,595
months, years in the making to, to
try and make this what goes into a

285
00:13:56,595 --> 00:13:58,335
story that's published on Manga Bay.

286
00:13:58,335 --> 00:14:00,615
You've been there for quite
some time over 10 years.

287
00:14:01,095 --> 00:14:03,225
What, what goes into
that, that type of story?

288
00:14:04,155 --> 00:14:04,395
Sure.

289
00:14:04,694 --> 00:14:08,385
Um, well, we publish, um, we
publish in different formats.

290
00:14:08,385 --> 00:14:11,685
So we publish, uh, short news,
we publish articles, we publish

291
00:14:11,685 --> 00:14:15,495
longer features, and we publish
investigations, videos, podcasts.

292
00:14:16,064 --> 00:14:21,944
Um, but what goes into it is, I mean,
just like any, you know, newspaper that's

293
00:14:21,944 --> 00:14:25,545
worth our salt is, uh, you know, good
old fashioned beat reporting, right?

294
00:14:25,545 --> 00:14:28,185
So we have reporters in these places.

295
00:14:28,725 --> 00:14:33,375
Um, who follow these issues
for a period of time.

296
00:14:33,855 --> 00:14:39,495
Um, get to know the sources involved
and, um, develop a certain amount of

297
00:14:39,495 --> 00:14:40,995
knowledge about the, about the issue.

298
00:14:40,995 --> 00:14:45,525
And, um, once you do that for a certain
amount of time, um, you know, you start

299
00:14:45,525 --> 00:14:46,935
to see where the stories are, right?

300
00:14:46,935 --> 00:14:50,805
You start to, you know, a, a, a story
that might not be published in the form

301
00:14:50,805 --> 00:14:54,555
of a, you know, an academic paper or
a, or a press release or an NGO report.

302
00:14:54,555 --> 00:14:56,865
I mean, those things can be good
to cover and we do cover those.

303
00:14:56,865 --> 00:15:01,005
But, uh, it's when you start to follow
an issue for, um, for an extended period

304
00:15:01,005 --> 00:15:06,135
of time, um, and, and, and, and know the,
the stakeholders, the people involved,

305
00:15:06,585 --> 00:15:10,065
that you start to see where the stories
lie, um, that haven't been covered, that

306
00:15:10,065 --> 00:15:12,135
are, uh, you know, right to be told.

307
00:15:12,135 --> 00:15:14,805
So, um, you know, that's
what we do at Manga Bay.

308
00:15:14,865 --> 00:15:21,915
Um, for example, um, on the Southeast Asia
desk we have, um, four staff reporters.

309
00:15:21,975 --> 00:15:24,765
Um, there's two in Jakarta,
there's two in, uh, Bangkok.

310
00:15:25,245 --> 00:15:27,015
We have, uh, two editors.

311
00:15:27,555 --> 00:15:30,525
We also have a network of freelancers
who are pitching us stories, who

312
00:15:30,525 --> 00:15:32,415
we assign stories to sometimes.

313
00:15:32,985 --> 00:15:37,425
Um, and you know, we have our, kind of,
our issues that that, that we cover.

314
00:15:37,515 --> 00:15:42,795
Um, same with our Africa desk or our
Latin America Desk, or our Oceans

315
00:15:42,795 --> 00:15:45,075
Desk or our Wildlife Trade Desk.

316
00:15:45,075 --> 00:15:47,985
Um, so, um, you know, that's how we do it.

317
00:15:48,585 --> 00:15:50,865
Um, you know.

318
00:15:50,985 --> 00:15:51,195
Yeah.

319
00:15:51,915 --> 00:15:52,275
Yeah.

320
00:15:52,395 --> 00:15:53,595
I think it's, I think it's interesting.

321
00:15:53,600 --> 00:15:58,185
I I, I, I really like that, um, because,
you know, putting all this stuff into a

322
00:15:58,185 --> 00:16:03,735
story and being able to collaborate with
others and having that geographic sort

323
00:16:03,735 --> 00:16:06,255
of spatial extent is, is, is pretty key.

324
00:16:06,255 --> 00:16:08,685
'cause we don't hear a lot of
stories within these areas.

325
00:16:08,925 --> 00:16:12,765
Um, and I think that's what makes
it quite unique, um, which is great.

326
00:16:13,155 --> 00:16:16,035
Let's, let's get into to
this story in particular.

327
00:16:16,185 --> 00:16:22,335
Um, you know, this is, you know,
we're looking at fish for, for, uh,

328
00:16:22,335 --> 00:16:24,075
for lunches, for kids in Brazil.

329
00:16:24,450 --> 00:16:26,490
Um, you know, it's really shark meat.

330
00:16:26,790 --> 00:16:30,660
Uh, there's a lot that goes in with
shark meat if, if they're, they're, um,

331
00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:35,670
they're fed to developing kids, you know,
kids who are, who are still developing

332
00:16:35,670 --> 00:16:39,270
in their, in their growth and their
brain growth and, and a lot of growth.

333
00:16:39,270 --> 00:16:42,330
That, and we know that there's
a lot of stuff that, that is in,

334
00:16:42,690 --> 00:16:45,930
uh, shark meat that is not very
good if you eat it too much.

335
00:16:45,930 --> 00:16:48,180
And so every day, that's
sounds like a lot.

336
00:16:48,180 --> 00:16:52,140
So why don't you just talk a little
bit about, um, how this story really

337
00:16:52,140 --> 00:16:55,680
began, uh, right from the beginning
and then how it developed into this

338
00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:57,930
story, this three part series, it seems.

339
00:16:59,370 --> 00:16:59,790
Sure.

340
00:16:59,790 --> 00:17:06,060
So, so I did this story as part of a,
as I mentioned, as part of a fellowship

341
00:17:06,060 --> 00:17:07,619
with the, uh, Pulitzer Center.

342
00:17:07,619 --> 00:17:11,550
And the, the thrust of that
proposal was to, uh, investigate

343
00:17:11,550 --> 00:17:13,349
the global shark trade.

344
00:17:13,920 --> 00:17:18,660
So, uh, one of the topics that I
was interested in looking at was

345
00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:21,599
the rise of the shark meat industry.

346
00:17:21,605 --> 00:17:21,974
Mm-hmm.

347
00:17:22,055 --> 00:17:22,375
Shark meat.

348
00:17:23,145 --> 00:17:26,474
So I think a lot of people
know about shark fins.

349
00:17:26,534 --> 00:17:27,105
Yes.

350
00:17:27,135 --> 00:17:30,855
Shark fin soup in Asia, you know,
the practice of shark thinning.

351
00:17:31,455 --> 00:17:33,824
Um, I'm sure your, your listeners
are familiar, but, um Yep.

352
00:17:33,855 --> 00:17:35,145
We've covered it extensively.

353
00:17:35,534 --> 00:17:36,145
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

354
00:17:36,145 --> 00:17:38,804
So, you know, you, you, you catch
the shark, you cut off the fins,

355
00:17:38,804 --> 00:17:39,915
you throw the rest of the body back.

356
00:17:39,915 --> 00:17:43,215
So, um, yeah, I wanted to look at
the shark meat industry, the shark

357
00:17:43,230 --> 00:17:51,735
meat trade, and um, Brazil is a top
consumer and importer of shark meat,

358
00:17:52,574 --> 00:17:54,705
so it made sense to look at Brazil.

359
00:17:55,185 --> 00:17:58,544
Um, this is something, the fact
that they're a top consumer and

360
00:17:58,544 --> 00:17:59,774
importer that's well documented.

361
00:17:59,774 --> 00:18:03,165
Um, you know, people who
follow this issue know that.

362
00:18:03,554 --> 00:18:09,885
But, um, as I started to approach various
conservationists, government people,

363
00:18:09,915 --> 00:18:15,195
et cetera, um, to talk about Brazil's
shark me trade and learn more about

364
00:18:15,195 --> 00:18:20,024
it, um, you know, I started to, to hear
about, um, government procurements.

365
00:18:20,835 --> 00:18:21,615
Is happening.

366
00:18:21,765 --> 00:18:24,645
And this is something, you know, I I,
I'd see it, it had been mentioned in,

367
00:18:24,645 --> 00:18:26,475
in published studies and articles.

368
00:18:26,535 --> 00:18:27,555
Um, yeah.

369
00:18:27,555 --> 00:18:29,715
And my colleague Carla had
interviewed somebody who mentioned it.

370
00:18:29,805 --> 00:18:32,385
Um, so it's not something that
was completely hidden, but it

371
00:18:32,385 --> 00:18:35,985
was, it was never, it was never
expounded on in any depth or length.

372
00:18:35,985 --> 00:18:40,035
It was always just kind of a, an
offhanded mention in the middle of some

373
00:18:40,035 --> 00:18:41,325
study, in the middle of some articles.

374
00:18:41,325 --> 00:18:44,805
So, um, you know, I thought that that
could be an interesting angle, right?

375
00:18:44,805 --> 00:18:47,715
I mean, if, if they're serving it
in schools or hospitals and that

376
00:18:47,715 --> 00:18:50,865
kind of thing, but how do you, how
do you show that this is happening?

377
00:18:50,870 --> 00:18:51,250
Mm-hmm.

378
00:18:51,465 --> 00:18:53,145
How do you approach this journalistically?

379
00:18:53,925 --> 00:18:58,365
Um, so as I, as I talked to, I talked
to a few people who mentioned to me

380
00:18:58,365 --> 00:19:01,305
that Brazil has a transparency law.

381
00:19:02,295 --> 00:19:06,285
Brazil has a transparency law,
which requires government agencies

382
00:19:06,825 --> 00:19:10,545
to publish procurement data, right?

383
00:19:10,545 --> 00:19:16,935
So if you're, if you're the education
department and you know, city X,

384
00:19:17,535 --> 00:19:19,125
you know, you've gotta publish.

385
00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:22,860
All the calls for tender
that you, that you issue.

386
00:19:22,860 --> 00:19:23,070
Right.

387
00:19:23,070 --> 00:19:27,330
If you're right, if you say, I want
to buy, you know, a thousand pounds

388
00:19:27,330 --> 00:19:30,870
of chicken for, uh, the local hospital
that goes on a website somewhere.

389
00:19:31,290 --> 00:19:31,500
Yeah.

390
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:35,250
So, um, a few people mention, you know,
hey, if you, if you, uh, if you have a

391
00:19:35,250 --> 00:19:39,210
lot of time on your hands, you know, you
could probably, you know, hunt around

392
00:19:39,210 --> 00:19:43,830
some of these websites and, uh, you know,
you, you'll find shark meat procurements.

393
00:19:44,460 --> 00:19:49,260
So, um, you know, because you had
all that time start to think, well,

394
00:19:49,260 --> 00:19:51,990
you know, this is, do a year for
this fellowship and, uh, you know.

395
00:19:52,020 --> 00:19:52,320
Yeah.

396
00:19:52,410 --> 00:19:54,330
Uh, so that's what we did basically.

397
00:19:54,360 --> 00:19:54,480
Yeah.

398
00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:55,950
Um, so that's what we did.

399
00:19:55,950 --> 00:19:58,350
That was kind of the premise
of this investigation.

400
00:19:58,350 --> 00:20:03,150
So, um, you know, I, I had
done a story like that before

401
00:20:03,150 --> 00:20:05,280
in Indonesia where you, um.

402
00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:09,389
You know, you go on a bunch of government
websites and you build a database

403
00:20:09,449 --> 00:20:11,639
of, in that case it was court cases.

404
00:20:11,790 --> 00:20:11,879
Mm-hmm.

405
00:20:12,179 --> 00:20:16,080
That was a story about, uh, traditional
farmers and on the island of Borneo

406
00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:19,409
getting criminally prosecuted
for using fire to clear land.

407
00:20:19,409 --> 00:20:20,159
It's a big issue there.

408
00:20:20,159 --> 00:20:21,240
Caused a lot of air pollution.

409
00:20:21,240 --> 00:20:21,990
So, uh, yeah.

410
00:20:22,409 --> 00:20:26,070
You know, we went and we built a database
of those, uh, those, those prosecutions.

411
00:20:26,129 --> 00:20:29,760
Uh, just, but, um, so this
was, in a way it was similar.

412
00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:32,459
We thought, okay, let's, we
can, we can build a database

413
00:20:32,459 --> 00:20:33,449
of shark meat procurements.

414
00:20:34,169 --> 00:20:38,159
Um, so it sounds straightforward,
but, uh, there were a lot of,

415
00:20:38,729 --> 00:20:40,649
a lot of, uh, difficulties.

416
00:20:40,740 --> 00:20:44,790
Um, you know, it's not a lot of reasons
why it's not so straightforward.

417
00:20:44,790 --> 00:20:47,520
One of which is that, um, there's
no central, it's not like there's

418
00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:50,340
one website you can go on to find
all the procurements in Brazil.

419
00:20:50,370 --> 00:20:50,459
Mm-hmm.

420
00:20:50,879 --> 00:20:52,469
Um, every state has its own.

421
00:20:54,300 --> 00:20:55,290
Transparency portal.

422
00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:58,379
Every city has its own
transparency portal.

423
00:20:58,379 --> 00:20:59,820
Oh, there's a federal transparency portal.

424
00:20:59,820 --> 00:21:01,320
There's thousands of cities in Brazil.

425
00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:04,110
So it's like, how do you,
how do you approach this?

426
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:09,450
Um, so we thought, okay, let's,
let's pick, you know, four states.

427
00:21:10,139 --> 00:21:10,950
Start there.

428
00:21:11,970 --> 00:21:15,780
Um, and so one of the authors of this
story, one of the bylines on this story

429
00:21:15,780 --> 00:21:19,560
is, uh, my colleague King, he's the
data editor at the Pulitzer Center.

430
00:21:20,220 --> 00:21:24,840
Um, so he, you know, I worked very closely
with him to, uh, we tried to figure out

431
00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:26,675
a way to scrape these websites, right?

432
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:26,940
Right.

433
00:21:26,940 --> 00:21:32,159
So he used his magical coding abilities
to, uh, to build these bots that

434
00:21:32,159 --> 00:21:33,840
would go on these portals mm-hmm.

435
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:36,480
And try to scrape, uh,
shark meat procurement.

436
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:39,149
So, um, so we did that for four states.

437
00:21:39,149 --> 00:21:42,450
It was the state of Sao
Paulo Rio de Janeiro.

438
00:21:44,084 --> 00:21:46,304
And, um, what was the other one?

439
00:21:46,334 --> 00:21:48,104
Um, I think it was Parina.

440
00:21:48,584 --> 00:21:51,705
Um, and I'm, of course I'm mangling
the pronunciations of some of those,

441
00:21:51,705 --> 00:21:53,955
but, um, so that's what we did.

442
00:21:53,955 --> 00:21:57,854
I mean, um, that's what we did and
there was a lot of manual labor that

443
00:21:57,854 --> 00:22:01,185
was involved in there, you know, having
to verify what the robots gave us.

444
00:22:01,185 --> 00:22:05,114
And, um, we also went on a lot of
city municipal transparency portals

445
00:22:05,114 --> 00:22:06,975
to find more shark meat tenders.

446
00:22:07,455 --> 00:22:09,554
Um, so that's kind of in a nutshell.

447
00:22:09,554 --> 00:22:12,495
I can, I can go into more detail
about, about that process.

448
00:22:12,495 --> 00:22:15,495
But, um, that was kind of the,
the meat of the investigation.

449
00:22:15,495 --> 00:22:20,715
And then we, um, of course once we
identified all these shark meat tenders,

450
00:22:21,104 --> 00:22:25,155
um, we, we sought to contact the, the
agencies that were buying the shark

451
00:22:25,155 --> 00:22:29,685
meat, um, the public institutions that
were receiving the shark meat, uh,

452
00:22:29,685 --> 00:22:33,584
the companies that were supplying the
shark meat, um, all that kind of thing.

453
00:22:33,705 --> 00:22:38,054
Um, and you know, one of the
reasons, uh, why it wasn't so

454
00:22:38,054 --> 00:22:42,135
straightforward is that shark meat
in Brazil, um, it's not actually.

455
00:22:42,630 --> 00:22:44,640
Sold under the label Shark Meat.

456
00:22:45,210 --> 00:22:46,230
It's called something else.

457
00:22:46,230 --> 00:22:47,790
It's called, it has this generic label.

458
00:22:47,790 --> 00:22:48,360
It's called Caan.

459
00:22:49,530 --> 00:22:54,780
Um, so Caan is like, it's a, it's a,
it's a common suffix in Portuguese.

460
00:22:54,780 --> 00:22:54,810
Okay.

461
00:22:55,590 --> 00:23:01,020
It's like in English it would be like,
you know, ca like vacation or convocation.

462
00:23:01,020 --> 00:23:03,725
So it's just that, that
ca you know, so, okay.

463
00:23:03,970 --> 00:23:06,540
So, so it's called, it's
sold under the name Caan.

464
00:23:06,540 --> 00:23:10,530
And, and, um, because it's a
suffix, like it, it becomes really

465
00:23:10,530 --> 00:23:13,980
hard to search these portals for
Caan because you search cassan.

466
00:23:13,980 --> 00:23:17,970
It actually brings up anything with
the word that, that has that in it.

467
00:23:17,970 --> 00:23:18,180
Right.

468
00:23:18,180 --> 00:23:19,980
It's, it's not a very, these
aren't very sophisticated

469
00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:21,150
search platforms like Google.

470
00:23:21,150 --> 00:23:23,250
You can't ask, you
generally can't ask them to.

471
00:23:23,700 --> 00:23:26,730
So that, that, that presented a whole
host of issues we had to overcome.

472
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:29,040
Um, oh man, that's a lot.

473
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:30,300
That does mess it up.

474
00:23:30,300 --> 00:23:30,570
Yeah.

475
00:23:31,485 --> 00:23:36,254
So that's kinda the basics of how we
approach the data gathering exercise.

476
00:23:36,855 --> 00:23:43,365
Now, further along into the story, do the
children and, and rightfully the parents

477
00:23:43,365 --> 00:23:46,155
know that they're having shark meat?

478
00:23:47,985 --> 00:23:49,155
Uh, that's a good question.

479
00:23:49,155 --> 00:23:51,465
I think the answer is almost always no.

480
00:23:52,125 --> 00:23:52,335
Hmm.

481
00:23:52,395 --> 00:23:56,955
Um, people don't know that cassan is
shark for the most part in Brazil.

482
00:23:57,495 --> 00:23:57,675
Right.

483
00:23:57,675 --> 00:24:01,545
Um, there's surveys that show that
most people who buy cassan don't

484
00:24:01,545 --> 00:24:02,895
know that it's actually shark.

485
00:24:03,345 --> 00:24:03,525
Right.

486
00:24:03,555 --> 00:24:05,985
Um, and this is a common
thing in, in fish.

487
00:24:06,014 --> 00:24:06,075
Yeah.

488
00:24:06,075 --> 00:24:06,405
Right?

489
00:24:06,410 --> 00:24:06,629
Yeah.

490
00:24:06,945 --> 00:24:10,754
Um, so it's not widely known.

491
00:24:11,415 --> 00:24:16,635
Um, you know, these packages don't have
labels that say like, this is shark.

492
00:24:16,635 --> 00:24:19,485
The word for shark and
Portuguese is uba, UBA, brown.

493
00:24:19,965 --> 00:24:22,395
Um, and that's typically
not on the labels.

494
00:24:22,395 --> 00:24:25,455
There's typically not a species name or
anything like that, so people don't know.

495
00:24:25,905 --> 00:24:27,830
Um, and so one of the people who was, uh.

496
00:24:28,965 --> 00:24:33,105
Featured in the article is, is a
woman who, uh, her name is Solan Ami.

497
00:24:33,105 --> 00:24:39,525
And she, um, she's a, uh, an
educator in a city that's in the

498
00:24:39,705 --> 00:24:41,385
Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area.

499
00:24:41,385 --> 00:24:47,085
And, um, she's also president of the
Municipal School Feeding Council, which

500
00:24:47,085 --> 00:24:51,735
kind of has a role in, um, you know, the,
the meal program for schools in that city.

501
00:24:51,735 --> 00:24:57,975
So she, she told us a story about how, um,
maybe around four years ago, she noticed

502
00:24:57,975 --> 00:25:02,985
that kids, you know, weren't eating, um,
the Caan, which was served every Monday.

503
00:25:03,465 --> 00:25:06,855
Um, and, you know, she
started to look into it.

504
00:25:06,855 --> 00:25:09,105
And, and it was only when she went
home and did some research that

505
00:25:09,105 --> 00:25:10,815
she realized that Cassan was shark.

506
00:25:11,385 --> 00:25:14,985
And she starts to, to read, you
know, some of the, the studies out

507
00:25:14,985 --> 00:25:18,915
there that say shark meat, you know,
tends to be high in heavy metals

508
00:25:18,915 --> 00:25:20,445
like mercury and arsenic, right?

509
00:25:20,445 --> 00:25:23,145
Because sharks are apex
predators that bioaccumulate.

510
00:25:23,580 --> 00:25:23,910
Right.

511
00:25:23,910 --> 00:25:25,950
These substances and
their, and their tissue.

512
00:25:25,950 --> 00:25:30,300
So, and she became concerned and so
she, over the past few years has been

513
00:25:30,300 --> 00:25:35,430
trying to get the municipal education
department in this, in this city to

514
00:25:35,430 --> 00:25:40,260
remove casa from, uh, the school meal
program, replace it with a different fish.

515
00:25:40,740 --> 00:25:42,390
Um, you know, they want
to be serving fish.

516
00:25:42,420 --> 00:25:45,240
Uh, there's an, there's a program in
Brazil to get people to eat more fish.

517
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,090
It's, it's seen as healthy
and, you know, like the source

518
00:25:48,090 --> 00:25:49,320
of fish protein and all that.

519
00:25:49,410 --> 00:25:49,620
Yeah.

520
00:25:49,710 --> 00:25:51,600
Um, but she wanted 'em
to stop serving Casa.

521
00:25:52,230 --> 00:25:54,990
Um, and to this day, she's
been unable to do so.

522
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:59,100
Um, you know, one thing that we,
that we heard a lot from the, um,

523
00:25:59,130 --> 00:26:03,270
government officials that we talked
to, um, the, the, the government

524
00:26:03,270 --> 00:26:07,170
nutritionists that draw up these menus,
um, which inform these procurements

525
00:26:07,170 --> 00:26:11,130
is that shark meat is, is appealing
because it, it doesn't have bones.

526
00:26:12,330 --> 00:26:12,570
Hmm.

527
00:26:12,690 --> 00:26:13,590
So, uh, yeah.

528
00:26:13,590 --> 00:26:16,830
So this boneless flesh is, uh,
it's, it's appealing to people.

529
00:26:17,970 --> 00:26:21,389
In places like Brazil, um, who are
quite often concerned with, uh,

530
00:26:21,450 --> 00:26:24,180
choking on bones, they're afraid
that a kid's gonna choke on a bone,

531
00:26:24,360 --> 00:26:25,860
parents are gonna sue the school.

532
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:27,870
Um, that kind of a thing.

533
00:26:28,290 --> 00:26:29,760
You know, kids can go to the hospital.

534
00:26:30,180 --> 00:26:31,649
So, I mean, for me, that was surprising.

535
00:26:31,649 --> 00:26:34,409
'cause I, you know, I grew up, I
haven't really heard that in the us.

536
00:26:34,409 --> 00:26:35,399
I grew up eating fish.

537
00:26:35,430 --> 00:26:38,129
You know, bones was never
like that kind of a concern.

538
00:26:38,129 --> 00:26:41,100
But in the reporting for this project,
something I've heard from people in

539
00:26:41,100 --> 00:26:44,490
a lot of countries where maybe fish
consumption isn't such a normal thing.

540
00:26:44,490 --> 00:26:46,379
People are, people are
afraid of choking on bones.

541
00:26:46,889 --> 00:26:50,610
So that's a big reason for the appeal of
serving sharks to kids, especially kids.

542
00:26:51,120 --> 00:26:55,830
Um, but as we know, heavy metals like
mercury and arsenic can, can affect,

543
00:26:55,889 --> 00:26:58,500
uh, and they can affect anybody
if you, if you eat enough of it.

544
00:26:58,770 --> 00:26:58,950
Yep.

545
00:26:59,010 --> 00:27:00,090
Um, according to the science.

546
00:27:00,090 --> 00:27:04,590
But, um, you know, kids, especially like
the developing brains they can affect,

547
00:27:04,590 --> 00:27:09,090
um, those substances can affect developing
brains even, even more and more quickly

548
00:27:09,090 --> 00:27:10,500
than, you know, somebody who eats it.

549
00:27:11,190 --> 00:27:13,500
X amount of times per week
over the course of a lifetime.

550
00:27:13,620 --> 00:27:16,620
So, um, yeah, I think the famous case,
I think the famous case out of that

551
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:21,060
was, uh, an actor Jeremy Vin, who
was in Entourage and many other, uh,

552
00:27:21,060 --> 00:27:26,190
shows and, and movies where I, I, I
think he was like Scavo 'cause he just

553
00:27:26,190 --> 00:27:30,300
ate sushi every day for like decades.

554
00:27:30,420 --> 00:27:33,120
And when he went in to get his
blood tested, they were like,

555
00:27:33,510 --> 00:27:36,210
we don't know how you're alive.

556
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:40,830
'cause he had so much mercury in his,
in his system and they had to like do

557
00:27:40,830 --> 00:27:44,640
almost like a, like a, i I, I don't
know the term, but it was a, it was a

558
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,670
blood transfusion that where they had
to replace a lot of his blood because

559
00:27:47,970 --> 00:27:50,460
there was so much mercury and he was
in the hospital for quite some time.

560
00:27:50,820 --> 00:27:53,820
Um, and, and so that's like
one of the famous things and

561
00:27:53,820 --> 00:27:54,660
that's eating it every day.

562
00:27:54,660 --> 00:27:57,870
Obviously that's an extreme 'cause
not everybody eats fish every day, but

563
00:27:58,110 --> 00:28:00,600
if you're having, if you're a child
and you're eating it five times a

564
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,390
day and you're developing, like what
are the age groups of the children

565
00:28:03,390 --> 00:28:05,160
that are eating this, this meat?

566
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:07,470
It's as young as it gets, man.

567
00:28:07,470 --> 00:28:08,220
It's um.

568
00:28:09,030 --> 00:28:11,040
Because the homelessness
is part of the appeal.

569
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:11,250
Yeah.

570
00:28:11,340 --> 00:28:12,149
Even younger.

571
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:14,460
Younger, like early childhood education.

572
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:15,000
Yeah.

573
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,610
And yes, primary school, like
kindergarten, first grade.

574
00:28:17,610 --> 00:28:17,730
Right.

575
00:28:18,210 --> 00:28:22,620
Um, you know, in our, in our, in
our investigation, we, that was a

576
00:28:22,620 --> 00:28:26,550
question that we asked, like how,
you know, I think we identified, um,

577
00:28:27,120 --> 00:28:33,899
5,900 institutions, like individual
schools or hospitals that were listed

578
00:28:33,899 --> 00:28:37,770
as potential recipients of sharp meat
in these tenders that we identified.

579
00:28:38,370 --> 00:28:39,720
Most of them were schools.

580
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:40,169
Yeah.

581
00:28:40,260 --> 00:28:43,770
And we found at least a
thousand, more than a thousand,

582
00:28:43,770 --> 00:28:47,040
um, early childhood schools.

583
00:28:47,820 --> 00:28:48,090
Interesting.

584
00:28:48,090 --> 00:28:49,139
Um, wow.

585
00:28:49,235 --> 00:28:49,860
So, yeah.

586
00:28:49,860 --> 00:28:54,120
I mean, not just small children,
but also some elderly care centers.

587
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:54,179
Yeah.

588
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:55,260
Yeah.

589
00:28:55,530 --> 00:29:00,899
There was a, there was a, an agency in,
in Rio de Janeiro that told us, um, they

590
00:29:00,899 --> 00:29:06,659
were, they were, they were buying shark
meat for a, a shelter for disabled kids.

591
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:12,149
Kids with intellectual disabilities,
they, they saw it as, um, as, you know,

592
00:29:12,149 --> 00:29:15,899
as good for those, those kids because
maybe they have a harder time chewing.

593
00:29:15,959 --> 00:29:21,149
So the boneless meat was, um, was seen
as appealing for those kids just 'cause

594
00:29:21,149 --> 00:29:22,500
it was boneless meat at this point.

595
00:29:22,500 --> 00:29:22,709
Yeah.

596
00:29:22,770 --> 00:29:24,090
Like, that's major difference.

597
00:29:24,090 --> 00:29:25,439
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

598
00:29:25,530 --> 00:29:30,419
Um, so, you know, it's, it's
very widely adopted in Brazil.

599
00:29:30,419 --> 00:29:33,810
I mean, it's, you know, it's not just
restaurants, it's not just supermarkets.

600
00:29:33,959 --> 00:29:37,290
And I, you know, I walked around, I
was in Sao Paulo and I just wanted

601
00:29:37,290 --> 00:29:38,850
to see how wide widespread it was.

602
00:29:38,850 --> 00:29:44,729
I think I went to, I don't know,
25, 30 grocery stores, supermarkets,

603
00:29:44,729 --> 00:29:48,629
convenience stores, and I think almost
all of 'em had shark meat on sale

604
00:29:48,629 --> 00:29:51,629
in the, in the frozen food section,
sometimes in the fresh food section.

605
00:29:51,629 --> 00:29:54,149
So it's, yeah, Sao Pao is,
is a place where it's very

606
00:29:54,149 --> 00:29:56,370
commonly, very commonly served.

607
00:29:56,370 --> 00:29:59,520
It's interesting 'cause Sao Paulo's, they
have a lot of vegetarian restaurants.

608
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,370
It's known for having like amazing
vegan vegetarian food, but it's

609
00:30:02,370 --> 00:30:05,639
also, I suppose, known for having
a lot of shark meat on offers.

610
00:30:05,639 --> 00:30:05,939
So.

611
00:30:06,495 --> 00:30:07,064
Interesting.

612
00:30:07,125 --> 00:30:08,175
I wonder if that's the case.

613
00:30:08,175 --> 00:30:12,764
Like if, if there are people who
are mostly vegetarian but will take

614
00:30:12,764 --> 00:30:16,665
protein, a lot of the times it's, it's
some sort of seafood or fish, right?

615
00:30:16,850 --> 00:30:17,139
Yeah.

616
00:30:17,175 --> 00:30:17,415
Yeah.

617
00:30:17,415 --> 00:30:18,495
That I've seen anecdotally.

618
00:30:18,495 --> 00:30:21,735
I don't know if that's like widely
known, but people who are vegetarian

619
00:30:21,735 --> 00:30:24,735
who don't, are, aren't fully vegetarian,
but they'll eat because a lot of people,

620
00:30:24,735 --> 00:30:26,655
like, I'm vegetarian, but I eat fish.

621
00:30:27,014 --> 00:30:29,655
You know, and, and so like, they
still get the healthy, they get,

622
00:30:29,655 --> 00:30:32,955
they get the, the good proteins and
the fatty acids and, and so forth.

623
00:30:33,344 --> 00:30:35,054
Uh, and, and the, the minerals and stuff.

624
00:30:35,054 --> 00:30:38,354
But I maybe that's, I wonder
if that's a reason why as well.

625
00:30:38,415 --> 00:30:39,375
It's so popular there.

626
00:30:40,245 --> 00:30:40,425
Yeah.

627
00:30:40,425 --> 00:30:41,534
I wonder, you know, I don't know.

628
00:30:41,534 --> 00:30:44,745
I don't know where this term
cassan comes from even, um, yeah.

629
00:30:44,895 --> 00:30:46,334
Why, why that took hold.

630
00:30:46,395 --> 00:30:50,324
Um, you know, I've heard various
things, but nothing really solid.

631
00:30:50,324 --> 00:30:51,344
Um mm-hmm.

632
00:30:51,449 --> 00:30:53,415
Um, so yeah, it's an interesting question.

633
00:30:53,865 --> 00:30:54,284
Yeah.

634
00:30:54,375 --> 00:30:54,794
Yeah.

635
00:30:55,125 --> 00:30:59,324
Now, like when we talk about having,
like, why, why are we worried about

636
00:30:59,324 --> 00:31:01,245
this story really like the, you know.

637
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:03,330
People eat fish, people eat sharks.

638
00:31:03,330 --> 00:31:05,820
We know sometimes there's, there's fraud.

639
00:31:05,820 --> 00:31:08,190
But it sounds like, you know,
there's like seafood fraud.

640
00:31:08,190 --> 00:31:11,310
But it sounds like, you know, people
like the government is putting it up

641
00:31:11,310 --> 00:31:13,200
as procurement people are buying this.

642
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:15,240
A lot of people know
they're buying sharks.

643
00:31:15,300 --> 00:31:17,850
Uh, the kids may not know and the parents
may not know they're eating sharks.

644
00:31:17,850 --> 00:31:21,240
But why is this, uh, let's, let's
talk about like the, the issues

645
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:24,570
like from a a public health
perspective, why is this an issue?

646
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:26,340
Yeah, sure.

647
00:31:26,340 --> 00:31:31,230
So, um, why are we concerned about,
you know, thousands of tons of shark

648
00:31:31,230 --> 00:31:35,250
meat being bought by government
agencies in a country like Brazil?

649
00:31:35,700 --> 00:31:37,380
Um, so there's really two sides of it.

650
00:31:37,650 --> 00:31:41,190
Um, one side is the public
health side, which we touched on,

651
00:31:41,340 --> 00:31:42,570
can talk about that some more.

652
00:31:43,050 --> 00:31:46,380
Um, you know, the presence of heavy
metals in these, in these fish.

653
00:31:46,470 --> 00:31:49,440
Um, the other side is
sustainability, right?

654
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:54,000
So sharks are, generally speaking,
are declining across the world.

655
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,650
You know, there was a study that
that showed that shark abundance

656
00:31:58,710 --> 00:32:00,330
has declined by like 71%.

657
00:32:01,050 --> 00:32:02,699
Over the past 50 years.

658
00:32:03,090 --> 00:32:06,030
So, you know, sharks are being
overfished, sharks are in trouble.

659
00:32:06,510 --> 00:32:13,590
Um, and, um, you know, shark meat
is, um, is a growing industry.

660
00:32:14,219 --> 00:32:14,399
Mm-hmm.

661
00:32:14,406 --> 00:32:19,050
And that is driving the
overfishing of sharks.

662
00:32:19,469 --> 00:32:24,689
So when you identify kind of this hidden
driver of the shark meat industry in the

663
00:32:24,689 --> 00:32:29,459
form of widespread government procurements
in, you know, one of the biggest countries

664
00:32:29,459 --> 00:32:33,090
in the world, which also by the way could
be happening in other countries, other

665
00:32:33,090 --> 00:32:36,540
countries, governments, you know, I've
heard could be procuring shark meat.

666
00:32:36,540 --> 00:32:39,030
Maybe not on the same scale as
Brazil, but I've heard Portugal,

667
00:32:39,030 --> 00:32:40,649
I've heard some other places as well.

668
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,159
Um, you know, that is, um, you
know, an issue worth considering.

669
00:32:44,610 --> 00:32:47,580
Um, now look, I'm not gonna
tell anybody, you know, you can

670
00:32:47,580 --> 00:32:48,840
never, ever eat shark, right?

671
00:32:48,844 --> 00:32:48,925
Mm-hmm.

672
00:32:48,929 --> 00:32:50,879
You know, people have been
eating sharks since probably

673
00:32:50,879 --> 00:32:52,500
the beginning of human history.

674
00:32:52,830 --> 00:32:52,980
Right.

675
00:32:53,010 --> 00:32:55,169
Um, you know, we humans
eat a lot of things.

676
00:32:55,409 --> 00:32:58,919
Um, you know, I'm from, I live
for eight years in Indonesia.

677
00:32:59,010 --> 00:33:00,419
There's a place in Indonesia.

678
00:33:00,794 --> 00:33:03,314
Um, in the northern part of the
island of Solei where they're

679
00:33:03,314 --> 00:33:04,514
known to eat just about anything.

680
00:33:04,514 --> 00:33:08,205
I think the, the saying there is if
it, uh, if it, if it crawls, swims,

681
00:33:08,205 --> 00:33:09,975
flies, or walks, you know, we eat it.

682
00:33:09,975 --> 00:33:13,995
So, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not
gonna say nobody should ever reach shark.

683
00:33:14,024 --> 00:33:15,014
Uh, some people would say that.

684
00:33:15,074 --> 00:33:15,945
Um, yeah.

685
00:33:15,945 --> 00:33:18,135
But, um, you know, as a journalist,
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say that,

686
00:33:18,135 --> 00:33:22,784
but, um, you know, um, what's happened
is, um, there's been a shift from this

687
00:33:22,784 --> 00:33:25,034
traditional shark meat consumption, right?

688
00:33:25,034 --> 00:33:25,965
Like, you know Yep.

689
00:33:26,445 --> 00:33:26,834
Tradition.

690
00:33:26,834 --> 00:33:30,524
The villages here and there, indigenous
peoples here and there to what we

691
00:33:30,524 --> 00:33:35,145
have today, which is, which is this
big industrial scale fishing of

692
00:33:35,145 --> 00:33:37,304
sharks and consumption of shark meat.

693
00:33:37,725 --> 00:33:43,965
So, um, you know, to the extent where
you have hundreds of companies in Brazil

694
00:33:44,235 --> 00:33:48,584
that are involved in the distribution
of shark meat, um, which we show in our

695
00:33:48,584 --> 00:33:53,054
investigation, I think we identified more
somewhere between 200 and 250 companies

696
00:33:53,354 --> 00:33:55,334
that were supplying government agencies.

697
00:33:55,395 --> 00:33:55,754
Um.

698
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:58,560
You know, that, that, that
we, those are only the tenders

699
00:33:58,560 --> 00:33:59,580
that we, that we compiled.

700
00:33:59,580 --> 00:34:00,335
So, um, yeah.

701
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,410
You know, this has become
a massive global industry.

702
00:34:04,410 --> 00:34:07,620
Shark meat, I think is worth hundreds of
millions of dollars a year according to

703
00:34:07,620 --> 00:34:10,470
the WWF study published in I think 2021.

704
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:14,130
Um, so it's big business.

705
00:34:14,850 --> 00:34:21,420
Um, it's a massive industry and, um,
you know, I think at the very least,

706
00:34:21,870 --> 00:34:24,630
um, you know what a lot of people
will say is that there should, there

707
00:34:24,630 --> 00:34:27,330
should at the very least be clear
labeling on these products, right?

708
00:34:27,390 --> 00:34:27,720
Yeah.

709
00:34:27,780 --> 00:34:31,560
So some of the nutritionists who
put Cassan on the menu, they didn't

710
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:33,210
even know that Cassan was shark.

711
00:34:33,420 --> 00:34:33,510
Mm-hmm.

712
00:34:33,750 --> 00:34:35,430
They didn't know about the toxicology.

713
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:39,060
They don't study toxicology in Brazilian
nutritionist school, and they didn't

714
00:34:39,060 --> 00:34:40,740
know about the sustainability issues.

715
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:42,270
It was all news to them.

716
00:34:42,300 --> 00:34:47,880
So, um, I think at the very least, we
should be making informed decisions about.

717
00:34:48,300 --> 00:34:50,639
These kinds of, these kinds of foods.

718
00:34:50,700 --> 00:34:55,230
Um, you know, maybe there is a way to
sustainably fish shark and, and, you

719
00:34:55,230 --> 00:34:59,160
know, harvest their meat and, and serve
their meat in public institutions.

720
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:02,820
But, um, I think a prerequisite for
that should certainly be, um, you

721
00:35:02,820 --> 00:35:06,510
know, clear labeling, um, at least, at
least knowing what we're dealing with.

722
00:35:06,720 --> 00:35:09,480
Um, and that, by the way, is an
issue in shark fishing more broadly.

723
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:11,850
I mean, the data's not very
good for some of these species.

724
00:35:11,850 --> 00:35:14,850
Like it's hard to don't really
know the status of some of these

725
00:35:14,850 --> 00:35:16,200
species that we're fishing.

726
00:35:16,770 --> 00:35:19,950
Um, and you know, the blue shark
is the species that is the most

727
00:35:19,950 --> 00:35:21,330
commonly traded in the world today.

728
00:35:21,330 --> 00:35:22,680
That's a big oceanic shark.

729
00:35:23,190 --> 00:35:25,830
Um, oh, I'm sorry.

730
00:35:25,830 --> 00:35:26,520
Did I?

731
00:35:26,850 --> 00:35:27,150
Nope.

732
00:35:27,210 --> 00:35:27,690
You're all good.

733
00:35:28,140 --> 00:35:28,410
Okay.

734
00:35:28,410 --> 00:35:29,580
I'm sorry I minimized my window.

735
00:35:29,670 --> 00:35:30,370
Um, but you're still good?

736
00:35:30,370 --> 00:35:30,615
No, you're all good.

737
00:35:30,615 --> 00:35:30,780
Okay.

738
00:35:31,020 --> 00:35:31,500
Yeah, yeah.

739
00:35:31,500 --> 00:35:32,220
So sorry about that.

740
00:35:32,220 --> 00:35:35,310
So the blue shark is, um, the
most commonly traded species.

741
00:35:35,730 --> 00:35:41,370
Um, you know, it's, um, the industry
will say that, you know, the industry

742
00:35:41,370 --> 00:35:44,850
will argue that it's possible to
sustainably fish the blue shark.

743
00:35:45,510 --> 00:35:46,110
Um.

744
00:35:46,755 --> 00:35:50,265
Some conservationists will counter
that, you know, the data on blue

745
00:35:50,265 --> 00:35:51,555
sharks isn't, that, isn't that good?

746
00:35:51,585 --> 00:35:54,195
We don't really know
how, how they're doing.

747
00:35:54,375 --> 00:35:56,535
You know, we don't, we don't maybe
have the data showing that they're

748
00:35:56,535 --> 00:36:01,154
not doing very good, but, but, uh,
we also don't have data showing

749
00:36:01,154 --> 00:36:02,205
that they're doing really well.

750
00:36:02,565 --> 00:36:02,775
Yeah.

751
00:36:02,775 --> 00:36:06,615
So, um, we should maybe take the
precautionary right approach.

752
00:36:06,705 --> 00:36:09,945
Um, so that's a debate that's
happening right now in, you know,

753
00:36:09,945 --> 00:36:13,455
in the regional fisheries management
organizations, the RFMOs, yeah.

754
00:36:13,460 --> 00:36:18,255
In, in national governments,
national, um, settings like Brazil.

755
00:36:18,255 --> 00:36:22,095
I mean, sharks are really, I think
at a crossroads right now globally in

756
00:36:22,305 --> 00:36:24,795
Brazil in a number of other countries.

757
00:36:24,795 --> 00:36:28,965
Spain, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and the RFMOs.

758
00:36:29,025 --> 00:36:32,205
You know, people are just, I think
starting to realize that, that these

759
00:36:32,205 --> 00:36:35,715
big shark fishing industries exist
where boats are not only catching

760
00:36:35,715 --> 00:36:38,835
sharks as bycatch, but are actually
targeting sharks industrially.

761
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:43,620
And this has been going on for,
for a long time now, 20, 30 years.

762
00:36:43,620 --> 00:36:45,480
And it's been largely unregulated, right?

763
00:36:45,630 --> 00:36:45,900
Yeah.

764
00:36:46,020 --> 00:36:49,350
Um, there's no, in many, most places you
can take as many blue sharks as a boat can

765
00:36:49,350 --> 00:36:50,700
go take as many blue sharks as they want.

766
00:36:50,700 --> 00:36:51,660
There's no rules for it.

767
00:36:51,660 --> 00:36:51,720
No.

768
00:36:52,140 --> 00:36:53,730
Um, it's not like tuna and swordfish.

769
00:36:53,730 --> 00:36:58,950
They're managed with quotas and
seasons and gear and stuff like that.

770
00:36:59,130 --> 00:37:00,840
Sharks just by catch, right?

771
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:02,610
So we, we can go take as many as we want.

772
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,520
And now we're sitting here in 2025.

773
00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:08,730
Sharks have gone down by
71% the past 50 years.

774
00:37:09,150 --> 00:37:11,700
And, um, people are
starting to wake up to this.

775
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:13,770
Blue sharks are now on appendix two of Es.

776
00:37:14,850 --> 00:37:19,320
And, um, there are debates about
can we fish sharks sustainably?

777
00:37:19,740 --> 00:37:20,940
What does that look like?

778
00:37:21,420 --> 00:37:23,760
Um, you know, how do we regulate it?

779
00:37:23,820 --> 00:37:24,690
Should we regulate it?

780
00:37:24,690 --> 00:37:25,290
That kind of thing.

781
00:37:25,380 --> 00:37:27,660
So, um, you know, it's
rich, it's a rich vein.

782
00:37:27,660 --> 00:37:32,100
Um, and to add to that too, uh,
you know, sharks are such a dynamic

783
00:37:32,100 --> 00:37:34,470
species or type of species because.

784
00:37:34,875 --> 00:37:36,135
You have a lot of different sharks.

785
00:37:36,135 --> 00:37:40,845
We have, we've identified now I think
we've grown from 452, you know, over

786
00:37:40,845 --> 00:37:46,815
1200 sal ranks, you know, looking at
sharks, skates, rays, and, and in kymera.

787
00:37:47,235 --> 00:37:50,535
But when you look at even like the
blue shark, you know, some areas

788
00:37:50,535 --> 00:37:54,825
they're, they're well managed in that
they have quotas and that they're,

789
00:37:54,855 --> 00:37:57,705
they're, look, you look at them
and we know their population size.

790
00:37:58,705 --> 00:38:01,075
Even there, we don't
have enough information.

791
00:38:01,075 --> 00:38:02,515
We only have some information.

792
00:38:02,725 --> 00:38:04,615
There's a lot of sharks, but we
just don't have any information

793
00:38:04,615 --> 00:38:07,345
at all, and people are still
catching them on a regular basis.

794
00:38:07,345 --> 00:38:10,075
You know, we get most of our
information from the fishers who

795
00:38:10,075 --> 00:38:12,145
are fishing them because they're
the ones who are catching them.

796
00:38:12,445 --> 00:38:15,145
Uh, I, I co-host another podcast
called the Beyond Jaws podcast

797
00:38:15,145 --> 00:38:17,905
with Dr. David Ebert, and he's
known as the Lost Shark Guy.

798
00:38:17,905 --> 00:38:20,815
He looks for a lot of these sharks who
haven't been seen in a long time, and

799
00:38:20,815 --> 00:38:23,845
most of the time he finds them at the fish
markets because that's where they go and

800
00:38:23,845 --> 00:38:27,415
talking to other fishermen and, and we,
if we don't have the information on those

801
00:38:27,415 --> 00:38:29,065
species, how are we supposed to find them?

802
00:38:29,275 --> 00:38:31,855
Or even, how are we supposed to manage
the species that we can find because

803
00:38:31,855 --> 00:38:36,265
we just, people are not looking at this
type of species, which makes even more

804
00:38:36,265 --> 00:38:40,735
concerning when you're seeing, as you
mentioned, over 5,000 institutions in

805
00:38:40,735 --> 00:38:46,345
Brazil who are ordering shark meat on a,
on a regular basis to feed it to their.

806
00:38:46,710 --> 00:38:49,230
The, the people that they care for,
whether it be students, whether it

807
00:38:49,230 --> 00:38:52,980
be elderly, whether it be, uh, you
know, patients as in, in hospitals.

808
00:38:53,279 --> 00:38:55,259
It's, it's a very difficult thing to do.

809
00:38:55,529 --> 00:39:00,660
Uh, and if already looking at the,
the, you know, degradation of, of shark

810
00:39:00,660 --> 00:39:04,109
populations around the world, which,
which is really, you know, one of the

811
00:39:04,109 --> 00:39:06,810
things that I, one of the reasons why I
want to have you on, you mentioned at the

812
00:39:06,810 --> 00:39:10,170
beginning, most people know about shark
thinning, but, and, and the problems

813
00:39:10,174 --> 00:39:12,000
that, that, that thinning is producing.

814
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:17,250
But a lot of times we ignore shark
meat and just shark fishing in general.

815
00:39:17,370 --> 00:39:20,250
And there are some, and you can
say, you may be able to argue, there

816
00:39:20,250 --> 00:39:25,020
are some, um, populations of, of
species that are of shark that are

817
00:39:25,020 --> 00:39:27,420
well-managed, but those are in very small.

818
00:39:27,420 --> 00:39:29,790
Like those are in, uh,
you know, very spotted.

819
00:39:30,029 --> 00:39:32,879
Uh, and I know there's some in the
us but even then there's arguments

820
00:39:32,879 --> 00:39:35,370
that they're not, you know, as
well managed everybody things.

821
00:39:35,370 --> 00:39:37,740
'cause never, it's never fully perfect.

822
00:39:38,129 --> 00:39:40,770
Um, but when you're not managing
them and you're not looking at

823
00:39:40,770 --> 00:39:43,259
their numbers and you're not seeing
how they're gonna do, and you're.

824
00:39:44,085 --> 00:39:47,650
You're selling this meat as like,
as like, it's nothing like, it's

825
00:39:47,654 --> 00:39:48,795
like, it's like it's infinite.

826
00:39:49,125 --> 00:39:52,605
We know it's not infinite, and it
scares the hell outta me from a, a

827
00:39:52,605 --> 00:39:56,865
conservation standpoint that we are
not, you know, monitoring the this

828
00:39:57,045 --> 00:39:58,875
further or monitoring this more.

829
00:39:59,235 --> 00:40:05,235
Um, now when you first wrote this
article, uh, it came in two parts, right?

830
00:40:05,235 --> 00:40:07,700
Was that the, i, was that the
first, was that, was that the, the

831
00:40:07,705 --> 00:40:09,915
goal, was this gonna be two parts?

832
00:40:10,965 --> 00:40:11,415
Yeah.

833
00:40:11,415 --> 00:40:14,444
So the initial goal was just one story.

834
00:40:14,715 --> 00:40:14,985
Okay.

835
00:40:14,985 --> 00:40:16,215
One story about, yeah.

836
00:40:16,215 --> 00:40:19,035
Brazilian government
procurements of shark meat.

837
00:40:20,115 --> 00:40:22,605
Um, so, but then something else emerged.

838
00:40:22,605 --> 00:40:28,634
So, um, as I'm going through these,
these procurement portals, these

839
00:40:28,634 --> 00:40:32,265
websites where the government agencies
are listing the, uh, the procurements

840
00:40:32,265 --> 00:40:36,210
and just kind of combing through them,
searching for cassan, Cassan, Cassan.

841
00:40:36,210 --> 00:40:36,220
Mm-hmm.

842
00:40:36,884 --> 00:40:39,075
Um, I noticed that, um.

843
00:40:40,260 --> 00:40:45,600
In one state in Brazil, southernmost
state, uh, Rio Grand do, um, which

844
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:47,190
is on the border with Uruguay.

845
00:40:47,190 --> 00:40:48,840
It's got a big fishing industry.

846
00:40:49,050 --> 00:40:50,550
Um, eat a lot of seafood down there.

847
00:40:51,060 --> 00:40:54,840
Um, I was seeing tenders for,
um, something else called, um,

848
00:40:57,330 --> 00:40:58,740
mmo, maybe it's pronounced Portuguese.

849
00:40:58,740 --> 00:41:01,560
So that's, um, translates as angel fish.

850
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,240
Ah, angel fish.

851
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:03,810
Angel fish.

852
00:41:03,900 --> 00:41:07,380
So I, you know, at first I didn't
think much of it, but I started

853
00:41:07,380 --> 00:41:09,450
to see it and I was like, what
is, what is this angel fish?

854
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:11,700
I mean, 'cause you know
the aquarium fish, right?

855
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:12,690
Like the angel fish?

856
00:41:12,750 --> 00:41:13,120
Yeah, yeah.

857
00:41:13,170 --> 00:41:14,380
Like, do people, do people eat that?

858
00:41:14,380 --> 00:41:15,390
There's a lot of different names.

859
00:41:15,390 --> 00:41:15,750
Yeah.

860
00:41:16,140 --> 00:41:16,620
Yeah.

861
00:41:16,650 --> 00:41:18,990
I mean, so it's like,
well, no, it can't be that.

862
00:41:18,990 --> 00:41:23,340
I mean, that's not, they're not, there's
no industry that's producing angel fish,

863
00:41:23,820 --> 00:41:27,060
you know, for, for consumption like
this, uh, on an industrial scale, right.

864
00:41:27,090 --> 00:41:27,840
It's just not done.

865
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:32,310
So angel fish, um, you
know, what could that be?

866
00:41:32,310 --> 00:41:35,220
So in one of these tenders, even
though what they were, what they

867
00:41:35,220 --> 00:41:37,170
were asking for was angel fish.

868
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,270
Uh, there was a supporting
document that made clear that angel

869
00:41:42,270 --> 00:41:44,460
fish was actually angel Shark.

870
00:41:45,240 --> 00:41:48,810
Um, so that was very interesting.

871
00:41:48,990 --> 00:41:53,670
So, um, when you first saw, when you
first saw like angel fish and then all

872
00:41:53,670 --> 00:41:57,900
of a sudden you realize that it's, it's
not phish, it's like a type of shark.

873
00:41:58,350 --> 00:41:59,790
What was your reaction to that?

874
00:42:00,690 --> 00:42:03,720
At first I was like, it's
this can't be asking for angel

875
00:42:03,720 --> 00:42:04,890
shark 'cause they're in danger.

876
00:42:04,895 --> 00:42:05,280
Right, right.

877
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:10,530
That would just seem I, in Brazil,
like it's, it's illegal to, um, I mean,

878
00:42:10,530 --> 00:42:13,320
you can't catch endangered species.

879
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,450
You can't catch angel
shark, even if they're dead.

880
00:42:15,450 --> 00:42:16,560
You have to throw it back.

881
00:42:16,860 --> 00:42:17,040
Yep.

882
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:20,730
And you can't trade angel shark,
um, unless there is an, there is

883
00:42:20,730 --> 00:42:25,890
an exemption that you can trade an
endangered species if it is important.

884
00:42:26,850 --> 00:42:27,480
So, okay.

885
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,030
Maybe there's a, you know, okay,
that's, maybe it could be legal, but

886
00:42:30,090 --> 00:42:33,240
I mean, when I first saw this, I,
I was kind of, I don't know, so I,

887
00:42:33,240 --> 00:42:35,730
I had to ask a bunch of people, um.

888
00:42:36,390 --> 00:42:40,410
And, um, but eventually it did
become clear that no, this ano

889
00:42:40,410 --> 00:42:42,690
is a reference to Angel Shark.

890
00:42:43,110 --> 00:42:44,640
There was just a lot of
evidence that we found.

891
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:46,680
It's, it's, it's all it's
explained in the article.

892
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:47,175
Um mm-hmm.

893
00:42:47,340 --> 00:42:50,910
You know, one of the tenders, um,
there was a supporting document that

894
00:42:50,910 --> 00:42:56,910
said, made clear that Ano was actually
cas on Ho, which that is the official

895
00:42:56,940 --> 00:42:59,520
trade name for Angel Shark in Brazil.

896
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:04,560
So the Ministry of Agriculture, um,
you know, regulates the official

897
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:06,450
trade names for like, food in Brazil.

898
00:43:06,450 --> 00:43:10,259
And so these species, these, these
three species of angel shark that

899
00:43:10,259 --> 00:43:12,540
are native to Brazil, they have
like official trade names and

900
00:43:12,540 --> 00:43:15,210
it's always casal anal something.

901
00:43:15,270 --> 00:43:16,350
Casal an ho something.

902
00:43:16,350 --> 00:43:18,330
Yeah, I'm, I'm totally mangled different.

903
00:43:18,515 --> 00:43:19,410
No, no, but I get it.

904
00:43:19,410 --> 00:43:20,570
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

905
00:43:20,820 --> 00:43:21,180
So, okay.

906
00:43:21,180 --> 00:43:22,980
This is Casal Anjo, so
this is Angel Shark.

907
00:43:23,100 --> 00:43:25,020
There's no doubt about it,
at least in this tender.

908
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,050
Um, you know, so we dug
around a little bit.

909
00:43:28,050 --> 00:43:32,220
We found, um, you know,
there was a document, um.

910
00:43:32,790 --> 00:43:38,070
I think it was some museum archive that
showed Thato was a, a trade, a common

911
00:43:38,070 --> 00:43:39,990
name for Angel Shark in Rio Grand.

912
00:43:39,990 --> 00:43:40,770
Judo Sewell.

913
00:43:41,220 --> 00:43:46,560
Um, there was a, there was another
thing that we found that um, I think,

914
00:43:46,710 --> 00:43:50,100
um, I'm gonna mangle this 'cause it's
from memory, but it was something

915
00:43:50,100 --> 00:43:53,190
to, it was some government document
that was kind of further indicating

916
00:43:53,190 --> 00:43:54,780
that Aho was actually Angel Shark.

917
00:43:54,935 --> 00:43:55,225
Okay.

918
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,380
Um, you know, and, and comp,
it's being sold openly.

919
00:43:58,380 --> 00:44:04,230
I mean, in, in restaurants, in markets in
this state, pat Ho, and sometimes it is,

920
00:44:04,770 --> 00:44:08,820
um, and rarely it is sometimes it's called
Casa an ho, like on, on the label, on

921
00:44:08,820 --> 00:44:10,260
the product and like a store or whatever.

922
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,110
So, um, you know, so that
kind of became clear.

923
00:44:13,110 --> 00:44:13,320
Okay.

924
00:44:14,010 --> 00:44:16,470
Ano is a reference to Angel Shark.

925
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,860
Um, that doesn't mean that when
they're procuring Piao, what they're

926
00:44:19,860 --> 00:44:21,420
getting is always Angel Shark.

927
00:44:21,420 --> 00:44:24,180
I mean, that was something
that, you know, experts.

928
00:44:24,720 --> 00:44:27,089
I interviewed said it's like,
you know, the suppliers could

929
00:44:27,089 --> 00:44:28,470
be supplying something else.

930
00:44:28,470 --> 00:44:31,379
It could be a different kind
of shark, it could be guitar,

931
00:44:31,379 --> 00:44:32,580
fish, or something like that.

932
00:44:32,850 --> 00:44:35,370
Even with cassan, there
could be endangered species.

933
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:35,640
Yep.

934
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:38,549
Getting into this supply chain as cassan.

935
00:44:38,609 --> 00:44:38,730
Yeah.

936
00:44:38,734 --> 00:44:38,975
We don't know.

937
00:44:38,975 --> 00:44:42,089
We don't know because it's just cassan,
you know, ca it might be blue shark,

938
00:44:42,089 --> 00:44:45,330
which is legal, but it might be another
species, which is not, I mean, unless

939
00:44:45,330 --> 00:44:50,910
you have a DNA sampler right then and
there to, to, to like sample randomly

940
00:44:50,910 --> 00:44:52,589
the meat, you'll really never know.

941
00:44:52,589 --> 00:44:52,980
Right.

942
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:53,910
Exactly.

943
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:54,509
Yeah.

944
00:44:54,540 --> 00:44:58,500
So that's, I mean, there's been a lot
of studies, um, in the past several

945
00:44:58,500 --> 00:45:03,420
years, uh, like genetic studies where
they take some, a scientist will go

946
00:45:03,420 --> 00:45:06,210
take some meat that's being sold at
the supermarket and they'll test to

947
00:45:06,210 --> 00:45:10,109
the, they'll do this genetic test to
see what species it is, and quite often

948
00:45:10,770 --> 00:45:12,270
Caan is like hammerhead sharks or.

949
00:45:12,315 --> 00:45:13,515
Yeah, something like that.

950
00:45:13,695 --> 00:45:14,115
Yeah.

951
00:45:14,265 --> 00:45:15,915
So it's a common issue.

952
00:45:15,915 --> 00:45:19,665
Um, but to see Angel Sharks being kind
of like openly procured, like this was

953
00:45:19,665 --> 00:45:21,645
very surprising, very, very surprising.

954
00:45:22,155 --> 00:45:26,355
Um, you know, so either it's being
imported legally or it is being

955
00:45:26,355 --> 00:45:29,535
illegal caught in Brazil and then
kind of longed to this supply chain.

956
00:45:29,955 --> 00:45:30,045
Mm-hmm.

957
00:45:30,046 --> 00:45:31,455
So, um, we don't know.

958
00:45:31,455 --> 00:45:36,165
We didn't, it was kind of beyond the scope
of our investigation, but we learned from,

959
00:45:36,165 --> 00:45:38,565
um, Brazil's, uh, environment Agency.

960
00:45:38,565 --> 00:45:39,615
It's called Obama.

961
00:45:40,125 --> 00:45:44,235
Um, Obama, you know, they, they are,
they're trying to crack down on the

962
00:45:44,235 --> 00:45:47,925
illegal angel shark trade, and they've
actually asked the environment ministry

963
00:45:47,925 --> 00:45:51,945
to close that exemption that allows
imported endangered species to be

964
00:45:51,945 --> 00:45:56,385
traded because it, it kind of creates
an opportunity to launder this, um,

965
00:45:56,505 --> 00:45:59,595
yeah, illegally caught Brazilian
Angel shark into these supply chains.

966
00:45:59,655 --> 00:46:05,265
Um, so, you know, it's, um, it's really
hard to trace these supply chains,

967
00:46:05,775 --> 00:46:08,625
um, because, and we don't know the, we
don't know the portion of it either.

968
00:46:08,625 --> 00:46:12,135
Like, we don't know the proportion of
how much Angel shark was coming in.

969
00:46:13,620 --> 00:46:14,549
In this situation, right?

970
00:46:14,549 --> 00:46:18,299
Because it could have been under the
Cassa name too, but we True dunno, right?

971
00:46:18,305 --> 00:46:19,529
That's that's definitely true.

972
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:20,040
Yeah.

973
00:46:20,100 --> 00:46:24,899
So the, the import data is not always
clear about that kind of stuff, right?

974
00:46:25,109 --> 00:46:27,660
Uh, it's not really, it's a
shark is coming in, it's not

975
00:46:27,660 --> 00:46:29,790
usually not divided by species.

976
00:46:29,850 --> 00:46:30,600
Um, yeah.

977
00:46:31,109 --> 00:46:37,710
So it sounds like someone can do a, a
PhD just on, on the, uh, translation

978
00:46:37,710 --> 00:46:42,210
and identification of the supply chain
stuff that's coming through, you know,

979
00:46:42,330 --> 00:46:46,710
just imported into Brazil or probably any
country where we don't know the actual

980
00:46:46,710 --> 00:46:50,069
names because it's not as if they're
importing by name of species or just

981
00:46:50,129 --> 00:46:55,080
kind of like, it sounds like just a cat,
like a, a random general category that

982
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:57,450
people are importing these sharks under.

983
00:46:57,450 --> 00:47:00,299
And, and until we know different,
we don't know if it's just all

984
00:47:00,299 --> 00:47:03,450
blue sharks or how much is angel,
shark or anything like that.

985
00:47:03,450 --> 00:47:03,660
Right.

986
00:47:04,395 --> 00:47:04,755
Yep.

987
00:47:04,815 --> 00:47:05,205
Yep.

988
00:47:05,505 --> 00:47:08,025
The trade data is really tough
to work with for that reason.

989
00:47:08,025 --> 00:47:09,944
I think every country does it differently.

990
00:47:10,005 --> 00:47:10,125
Yeah.

991
00:47:10,215 --> 00:47:14,085
Um, I'm not totally expert on,
on all that trade data stuff, but

992
00:47:14,085 --> 00:47:17,685
there's a project right now at,
uh, Dalhousie University in Canada.

993
00:47:17,685 --> 00:47:17,695
Yeah.

994
00:47:17,695 --> 00:47:18,100
Dalhousie.

995
00:47:18,100 --> 00:47:18,500
Yeah, yeah.

996
00:47:18,915 --> 00:47:19,125
Yeah.

997
00:47:19,125 --> 00:47:23,505
So they're trying to map out the global
shark meat trade and um, you know, they've

998
00:47:23,505 --> 00:47:25,140
got their own methods for trying to Right.

999
00:47:25,185 --> 00:47:27,495
Work through these inconsistencies
and the trade data.

1000
00:47:27,495 --> 00:47:27,585
Yeah.

1001
00:47:27,975 --> 00:47:31,095
Um, from country to country
and, you know, entity to entity.

1002
00:47:31,095 --> 00:47:33,165
So yeah, that'll be interesting
when that comes out.

1003
00:47:33,495 --> 00:47:33,615
Yeah.

1004
00:47:33,615 --> 00:47:35,355
It'll little bit up the
transparency for sure.

1005
00:47:35,355 --> 00:47:37,815
I mean, that's something that's
needed in all fisheries, especially

1006
00:47:37,815 --> 00:47:41,115
shark fisheries, where we just don't
have the information and, uh, being

1007
00:47:41,115 --> 00:47:43,500
able to have this, uh, is, is great.

1008
00:47:44,100 --> 00:47:47,819
But, uh, definitely
surprising in this case.

1009
00:47:48,090 --> 00:47:50,100
Um, now you did these first two articles.

1010
00:47:50,100 --> 00:47:55,620
So the first one was on the, on the,
uh, I just, so the revelation of, of

1011
00:47:55,620 --> 00:47:59,759
the fact that these, these institutions,
it's not, I kept saying schools, but it's

1012
00:47:59,759 --> 00:48:04,259
not only schools, hospitals, and, and
even jails to prisons as well, right?

1013
00:48:04,259 --> 00:48:08,220
Like the, the people were reading
sharks, um, on a, on a regular basis.

1014
00:48:08,340 --> 00:48:14,040
Um, the second one was really identifying
like how illegal angel shark captures were

1015
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:16,560
being used also in these school lunches.

1016
00:48:16,950 --> 00:48:20,910
Um, there was a third one, uh, that
was, that was, uh, published today

1017
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:22,920
as of this recording August 26th.

1018
00:48:23,279 --> 00:48:25,830
Um, can you talk about what that was?

1019
00:48:25,830 --> 00:48:28,440
It was a bit of a response letter
to like, it's kind of like an update

1020
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:31,620
of, of what's been happening because
of the first two articles, right?

1021
00:48:32,490 --> 00:48:33,150
Yeah, exactly.

1022
00:48:33,150 --> 00:48:36,600
So, uh, yeah, we just published
this piece, uh, an hour ago.

1023
00:48:36,690 --> 00:48:38,940
Uh, yeah, it's basically reaction story.

1024
00:48:38,940 --> 00:48:39,299
Great time.

1025
00:48:39,299 --> 00:48:39,360
Yeah.

1026
00:48:40,500 --> 00:48:40,740
Yeah.

1027
00:48:40,740 --> 00:48:43,350
No, I was glad to get it out before,
before coming on here, but, uh.

1028
00:48:44,100 --> 00:48:45,960
It's basically a reactions piece.

1029
00:48:46,020 --> 00:48:50,610
Um, I mean, there's been, there's
been some reaction in Brazil to the

1030
00:48:50,610 --> 00:48:52,110
investigation that we published.

1031
00:48:52,530 --> 00:48:56,970
Um, there's a, a member of the na
uh, the National Parliament who,

1032
00:48:56,970 --> 00:49:01,440
um, he, he's actually introduced
a bill a couple years ago to ban

1033
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:03,720
federal procurements of shark meat.

1034
00:49:03,720 --> 00:49:06,540
Our investigation was more focused
on the state and municipal level.

1035
00:49:06,540 --> 00:49:06,570
Okay.

1036
00:49:06,570 --> 00:49:09,360
Which is, there's vastly more shark
meat pro cameras at, at that level.

1037
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:10,350
We, uh, seemingly right.

1038
00:49:10,350 --> 00:49:13,500
But, uh, so he, you know, he read
the story and he said he was gonna

1039
00:49:13,500 --> 00:49:17,580
call, call for a parliamentary
hearing to discuss findings.

1040
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:22,260
Um, you know, some other government
agencies responded, um, saying

1041
00:49:22,260 --> 00:49:23,430
they'd look into some of this stuff.

1042
00:49:23,490 --> 00:49:28,500
Um, you know, there's some industry,
you know, commentary kind of pushing

1043
00:49:28,500 --> 00:49:32,940
back against, um, some of the points
that were raised in the article.

1044
00:49:33,450 --> 00:49:37,230
Um, you know, mainly to do
with the heavy metals aspect.

1045
00:49:38,265 --> 00:49:39,674
Um, so, you know, we covered that.

1046
00:49:39,674 --> 00:49:43,335
We covered the statements that they put
out and, and what scientists are saying.

1047
00:49:43,335 --> 00:49:44,985
I think it's a really interesting debate.

1048
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:45,730
Yeah.

1049
00:49:45,735 --> 00:49:48,045
Um, you know, about the heavy
metals issue, you know, I'm not a

1050
00:49:48,045 --> 00:49:51,105
scientist, so, you know, I'm, I'm,
I'm going to the scientists, to the

1051
00:49:51,105 --> 00:49:52,275
industry people Yeah, of course.

1052
00:49:52,275 --> 00:49:53,115
And trying to understand.

1053
00:49:53,205 --> 00:49:58,424
Um, but, um, you know, the article
that we put out is, is talks

1054
00:49:58,424 --> 00:50:01,245
about arsenic is one of the ones
that appears in sharks sometimes.

1055
00:50:01,275 --> 00:50:05,625
Um, the first story that we put out talked
a bit about Mercury is another common one.

1056
00:50:06,225 --> 00:50:12,045
Um, so the industry, you know, will
argue that, um, you know, these concerns

1057
00:50:12,045 --> 00:50:13,875
about heavy metals are overblown.

1058
00:50:13,995 --> 00:50:14,785
Um, yeah.

1059
00:50:15,015 --> 00:50:18,975
You know, shark meat is really healthy
because it has, you know, it's protein,

1060
00:50:18,975 --> 00:50:20,865
Omega-3 fatty acids, that kind of thing.

1061
00:50:21,404 --> 00:50:25,845
Um, you know, they'll say, they'll
make various arguments about, about

1062
00:50:25,845 --> 00:50:29,865
mercury and about arsenic, which
are recounting in the articles.

1063
00:50:29,870 --> 00:50:31,904
And, and we kind of go back
and kind of present the debate.

1064
00:50:32,384 --> 00:50:35,205
Um, so, you know.

1065
00:50:35,940 --> 00:50:39,420
Um, I could get into some of that
stuff here if you want, um, nuts

1066
00:50:39,420 --> 00:50:41,670
and bolts of that, but that was,
that's definitely, that's in the

1067
00:50:41,670 --> 00:50:42,750
article that we just published.

1068
00:50:43,260 --> 00:50:48,420
Um, there's also a Portuguese
conservationist who she's quoted in

1069
00:50:48,420 --> 00:50:51,600
the story saying that there's a lot
of Portuguese government shark meat

1070
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:52,920
procurements, which I didn't know.

1071
00:50:53,430 --> 00:50:54,040
Um mm-hmm.

1072
00:50:54,210 --> 00:50:57,210
And, you know, there's a web, there's
a transparency portal in Portugal

1073
00:50:57,210 --> 00:51:00,330
where I guess you can go and you can
search for, uh, shark meat procurement.

1074
00:51:00,330 --> 00:51:03,090
So maybe that's something we should
follow up on, or maybe, right.

1075
00:51:03,150 --> 00:51:06,450
If there's a Portuguese journalist
out there who wants to, wants to write

1076
00:51:06,450 --> 00:51:09,630
about this, um, you know, we can,
maybe we can work together or, or,

1077
00:51:09,630 --> 00:51:10,770
you know, you can just do a story.

1078
00:51:10,770 --> 00:51:14,400
I think, um, I think this is something
that's bigger than just Brazil.

1079
00:51:14,970 --> 00:51:17,700
Um, it's worth, it's worth asking.

1080
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:21,420
Um, to what extent are these
government purchases, uh, driving

1081
00:51:21,420 --> 00:51:22,920
the shark meat trade globally?

1082
00:51:22,980 --> 00:51:23,130
Mm-hmm.

1083
00:51:23,730 --> 00:51:27,840
Um, you know, it's, in a way it's
like government subsidy subsidizing,

1084
00:51:27,990 --> 00:51:29,430
uh, the shark meat trade.

1085
00:51:30,270 --> 00:51:30,610
Um, yeah.

1086
00:51:30,715 --> 00:51:32,040
And, you know, and, and
you know, it's cheap.

1087
00:51:32,070 --> 00:51:32,760
It's cheap meat.

1088
00:51:32,850 --> 00:51:34,680
Um, the fins are expensive, the meat.

1089
00:51:35,085 --> 00:51:35,654
Is cheap.

1090
00:51:35,835 --> 00:51:38,205
Um, and that's, I think, the
other part of the big appeal.

1091
00:51:38,205 --> 00:51:41,505
The other big appeal besides the
bone is, is, is the low price.

1092
00:51:41,595 --> 00:51:42,315
So, um, yeah.

1093
00:51:42,404 --> 00:51:45,375
How do you feed a mass amount of
people with the cheapest meat ever?

1094
00:51:45,674 --> 00:51:45,975
Yeah, exactly.

1095
00:51:45,975 --> 00:51:48,165
Doesn't mean it's the best meat,
but it's the cheapest meat.

1096
00:51:48,165 --> 00:51:50,025
And if that works, that works for them.

1097
00:51:50,025 --> 00:51:50,295
Right?

1098
00:51:51,075 --> 00:51:51,555
Yeah.

1099
00:51:51,765 --> 00:51:55,605
You know, um, we talked to the
former mayor of a city in Sao

1100
00:51:55,605 --> 00:51:58,785
Pao state, um, who was involved
in some of these procurements.

1101
00:51:58,785 --> 00:52:01,515
He's actually the head of Obama now,
which is, uh, which is interesting.

1102
00:52:01,515 --> 00:52:05,475
But when he was mayor in the 2010s,
he signed off on some shark meat

1103
00:52:05,475 --> 00:52:09,525
procurements and not just shark
meat, also ray meat, um, for schools.

1104
00:52:10,154 --> 00:52:14,265
Um, and I think maybe hospitals, shelters,
I can't remember that particular city.

1105
00:52:14,265 --> 00:52:19,005
But, um, he said that, um, you
know, at the time he tried to push

1106
00:52:19,005 --> 00:52:22,275
back against it, you know, do we
really want to be serving shark?

1107
00:52:22,275 --> 00:52:28,095
But the, the nutritionists who dropped
the menus, um, you know, were basically

1108
00:52:28,095 --> 00:52:30,915
like, you know, you're gonna tell
me how to do my job kind of thing.

1109
00:52:31,395 --> 00:52:31,935
Um.

1110
00:52:32,500 --> 00:52:33,975
So, you know, it's,
it's, it's interesting.

1111
00:52:33,975 --> 00:52:37,785
So the way the system works is, um,
it's government agencies in Brazil,

1112
00:52:37,815 --> 00:52:44,235
they employ nutritionists who, um, drop
the menus for food procurements, right?

1113
00:52:44,265 --> 00:52:44,355
Mm-hmm.

1114
00:52:44,595 --> 00:52:46,545
Basically design the procurements.

1115
00:52:46,845 --> 00:52:48,555
And so it all goes back
to the nutritionists.

1116
00:52:49,065 --> 00:52:55,965
Um, and, um, there's thousands of
nutritionists in Brazil and, um, you

1117
00:52:55,965 --> 00:52:59,085
know, they don't know that that, that in
a lot of cases, I mean, the ones we talked

1118
00:52:59,085 --> 00:53:01,875
to, I can't say for all of 'em, but it
seems like at least the ones we talked to

1119
00:53:02,745 --> 00:53:04,485
seem to not know that Kessan was shark.

1120
00:53:04,995 --> 00:53:07,335
Um, and to know about
the heavy metals issues.

1121
00:53:07,335 --> 00:53:09,135
So, um, interesting.

1122
00:53:09,165 --> 00:53:12,015
I forgot what I was talking about for
a sec. It was, uh, it was the mayor.

1123
00:53:12,315 --> 00:53:12,885
Yeah, the mayor.

1124
00:53:12,885 --> 00:53:13,155
Yeah.

1125
00:53:13,215 --> 00:53:13,605
Yeah.

1126
00:53:14,115 --> 00:53:14,325
Yeah.

1127
00:53:15,634 --> 00:53:17,790
I, I, I feel like it, it,
it's, it's interesting when,

1128
00:53:17,819 --> 00:53:19,200
when all this develops, right?

1129
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,590
You, you do the first two articles,
you get all this, this response.

1130
00:53:22,830 --> 00:53:27,390
Did you expect this type of response
from, from the, like, like a

1131
00:53:27,390 --> 00:53:32,790
federal, you know, uh, a federal
politician as well as industry?

1132
00:53:33,810 --> 00:53:36,509
Because that means it must make a
splash that mean it, most people

1133
00:53:36,509 --> 00:53:38,069
must be reading this stuff, right?

1134
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:38,340
Yeah.

1135
00:53:38,340 --> 00:53:40,290
I mean, you know, that's, that's
always what you wanna see, right?

1136
00:53:40,290 --> 00:53:43,350
As a journalist, you wanna, you wanna,
you wanna know that it's being read

1137
00:53:43,350 --> 00:53:47,850
and, you know, so I, I don't know if
I ex, if I, if I was totally shocked

1138
00:53:47,910 --> 00:53:49,860
to, to, to see this kind of response.

1139
00:53:49,860 --> 00:53:53,700
I mean, I, I kind of knew going into
this, that this was a big issue and,

1140
00:53:53,700 --> 00:53:57,000
and, and just the scale of it, the fact
that it's happening all over the country.

1141
00:53:57,509 --> 00:54:03,150
Um, I mean, before we put out this story,
um, there's really nothing on government

1142
00:54:03,150 --> 00:54:04,920
procurements of shark meat anywhere.

1143
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:08,850
I, I hadn't found any report, any article,
any study anywhere that was part of.

1144
00:54:09,839 --> 00:54:12,420
When we're going into this, like, is this
something we wanna spend a lot of time on?

1145
00:54:12,420 --> 00:54:15,270
Because it could take some time, but that
was part of the calculus for us, right.

1146
00:54:15,810 --> 00:54:19,020
Um, so that, that kind
of made it worth doing.

1147
00:54:19,020 --> 00:54:22,379
And so I wasn't totally shocked to
see, to see responses like that.

1148
00:54:22,379 --> 00:54:26,700
Um, you know, it's a little unfortunate,
I think to see kind of maybe some

1149
00:54:26,700 --> 00:54:28,170
hostile responses from mm-hmm.

1150
00:54:28,410 --> 00:54:29,790
Some quarters of the industry.

1151
00:54:30,240 --> 00:54:31,975
Not totally surprising, right.

1152
00:54:32,075 --> 00:54:35,700
But, um, you know, you try to engage in
good faith, you try to, I interviewed,

1153
00:54:35,910 --> 00:54:41,069
you know, I interviewed people on the
fishing side, on the trading side, on

1154
00:54:41,069 --> 00:54:43,620
the, um, you know, fishing to trading.

1155
00:54:43,620 --> 00:54:43,920
Right.

1156
00:54:43,980 --> 00:54:46,920
Um, people in like import export.

1157
00:54:47,580 --> 00:54:50,940
Um, so I feel like I've got a pretty
good understanding of the issues,

1158
00:54:50,940 --> 00:54:52,470
of the arguments on both sides.

1159
00:54:52,500 --> 00:54:54,870
Um, you know, it's something we
definitely wanna keep covering,

1160
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:56,609
um, in Brazil and elsewhere.

1161
00:54:57,240 --> 00:55:02,190
Um, you know, and hopefully it,
it continues to be, you know.

1162
00:55:03,225 --> 00:55:04,755
Relevant to, yeah.

1163
00:55:04,905 --> 00:55:06,585
The debate that people are
having in these places.

1164
00:55:06,945 --> 00:55:09,795
I think, I mean, I think you've
identified a lot, you know, in terms

1165
00:55:09,795 --> 00:55:12,345
of, of what needs to be further done.

1166
00:55:12,345 --> 00:55:15,675
I think we are looking at the
transparency of a supply chain.

1167
00:55:15,855 --> 00:55:20,325
You know, I, identifying these
categories that things are being, uh,

1168
00:55:20,415 --> 00:55:26,985
are being imported to, but there's
no sort of manifesto on, on the,

1169
00:55:27,045 --> 00:55:28,815
like, which species are being used?

1170
00:55:28,815 --> 00:55:30,045
Is it all blue sharks?

1171
00:55:30,045 --> 00:55:31,305
Is it not blue sharks?

1172
00:55:31,725 --> 00:55:35,025
You know, a call for like, looking
after the stock of where these,

1173
00:55:35,025 --> 00:55:37,725
you know, we don't even know
where these sharks are caught.

1174
00:55:38,415 --> 00:55:41,895
We probably know it's the Atlantic, but we
don't know where they're caught otherwise.

1175
00:55:42,225 --> 00:55:45,524
Um, it almost seems to be like
a, you know, DNA test needs to

1176
00:55:45,524 --> 00:55:48,795
be done, uh, to find out the,
the variety of different sharks.

1177
00:55:48,795 --> 00:55:52,154
If there's a variety of different sharks,
uh, different shark species that are

1178
00:55:52,154 --> 00:55:53,865
being, that are being consumed on this.

1179
00:55:53,865 --> 00:55:56,355
And, and if so, are they being managed?

1180
00:55:56,355 --> 00:55:56,865
Are they not?

1181
00:55:56,865 --> 00:55:57,734
What's their status?

1182
00:55:57,734 --> 00:55:58,515
All this stuff.

1183
00:55:58,545 --> 00:56:01,335
We know there's angel shark that's
being used, and that's, you know,

1184
00:56:01,335 --> 00:56:02,865
that's, that's already endangered.

1185
00:56:03,134 --> 00:56:06,975
Um, so we're looking already at
endangered species being, being, um,

1186
00:56:07,545 --> 00:56:09,194
being procured and, and being eaten.

1187
00:56:09,435 --> 00:56:13,365
And then there's also the safety aspect
of, of the people who are consuming this.

1188
00:56:13,455 --> 00:56:16,004
Some of them don't have a
choice, actually neither, none

1189
00:56:16,004 --> 00:56:16,904
of them really have a choice.

1190
00:56:16,904 --> 00:56:19,004
It's just offered as part of the thing.

1191
00:56:19,004 --> 00:56:22,515
And, and parents need to know about
this as well for schools, um, you

1192
00:56:22,515 --> 00:56:26,265
know, advocates for, for jails and,
and, and looking after the elderly.

1193
00:56:26,265 --> 00:56:30,375
Like their, their kids need to make sure
that the people who are eating this stuff.

1194
00:56:30,945 --> 00:56:32,325
Are gonna be safe, you know?

1195
00:56:32,325 --> 00:56:35,835
And, and, and, uh, and I know there
are studies out there that looking at

1196
00:56:35,835 --> 00:56:39,315
the effects of, you know, increased
arsenic and, and mercury in the

1197
00:56:39,315 --> 00:56:44,475
body is not, is not good, especially
from, um, from consuming seafood.

1198
00:56:44,775 --> 00:56:46,305
Um, that's something that
needs to be looked at.

1199
00:56:46,305 --> 00:56:49,005
So there seems to be a lot of,
of things that need to go on.

1200
00:56:49,005 --> 00:56:52,605
And I know you've just posted
the article, the, the follow up

1201
00:56:52,605 --> 00:56:54,645
article, like the response article.

1202
00:56:54,885 --> 00:56:58,005
Uh, you mentioned that, you know,
something that to look into is, is looking

1203
00:56:58,005 --> 00:57:02,115
into Portugal and, and their transparency
portal and, and what's in there.

1204
00:57:02,415 --> 00:57:07,545
Um, what would you think should the ne
like the next step should be in developing

1205
00:57:07,545 --> 00:57:13,875
this story in, in Brazil to like, are
you, look, are you hoping that with the

1206
00:57:13,875 --> 00:57:17,685
publication union co-authors with this
publication, that there's gonna be some

1207
00:57:17,685 --> 00:57:22,815
change or it's going to at least start,
spark a debate that looks at, you know,

1208
00:57:22,815 --> 00:57:24,675
whether the people of Brazil want this?

1209
00:57:26,355 --> 00:57:28,635
Yeah, so there's a few
ways it could go in Brazil.

1210
00:57:28,725 --> 00:57:29,325
Um.

1211
00:57:30,270 --> 00:57:35,640
So we have this bill that's been
introduced, uh, by this National

1212
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:38,910
Parliament member that would ban
federal procurements of shark meat.

1213
00:57:38,910 --> 00:57:40,440
So we'll see what happens with that.

1214
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:44,880
Um, but shark meat procurements
are happening at the state level.

1215
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:45,330
Mm-hmm.

1216
00:57:45,690 --> 00:57:46,800
And at the municipal level.

1217
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:51,720
So Brazil has like 30, I think it's
26 or 36 states, um, thousands,

1218
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:53,490
like 5,000, 6,000 cities.

1219
00:57:54,030 --> 00:57:59,310
Um, so you know, that's
something that would have to

1220
00:57:59,310 --> 00:58:01,200
get addressed by these mm-hmm.

1221
00:58:01,620 --> 00:58:02,520
Different jurisdictions.

1222
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:06,570
So it doesn't necessarily mean
banning shark meat procurements.

1223
00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:15,030
Um, for example, the, the state of
Parana, um, they passed a rule that any

1224
00:58:15,030 --> 00:58:21,990
shark meat sold in the state has to be
clearly labeled with the species name.

1225
00:58:22,770 --> 00:58:25,680
So you can't just sell it as casa Right.

1226
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:31,425
In Parana, you have to sell it as a. You
know, pre pka, if it's Blue Shark or, or

1227
00:58:31,425 --> 00:58:33,495
whatever it is, squat, it's angel Shark.

1228
00:58:33,495 --> 00:58:34,365
So, right.

1229
00:58:34,455 --> 00:58:38,835
Um, you know, that's a transparency
measure that could at least, if you're

1230
00:58:38,835 --> 00:58:45,495
gonna sell it, at least enables the
consumer to, um, understand what it

1231
00:58:45,495 --> 00:58:48,315
is that they're buying and consuming.

1232
00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:48,380
Mm-hmm.

1233
00:58:48,735 --> 00:58:48,915
Mm-hmm.

1234
00:58:49,395 --> 00:58:52,665
Um, so that's something that, you
know, a lot of people we interviewed

1235
00:58:52,755 --> 00:58:56,715
mentioned, um, as something
that could or should be done.

1236
00:58:57,435 --> 00:59:03,255
Um, um, um, um, yeah, so
Power Now has done that.

1237
00:59:03,255 --> 00:59:09,375
I mean, some, I think this the, you know,
a couple years ago there was a, the Sao

1238
00:59:09,375 --> 00:59:15,255
Pao city administration issued a tender
for some huge amount of shark meat.

1239
00:59:15,255 --> 00:59:18,885
I think it was like 650 tons of shark
meat for schools across the state.

1240
00:59:19,365 --> 00:59:22,275
That was actually, that actually
made headlines at the time.

1241
00:59:22,785 --> 00:59:27,045
Um, there was some civil society,
uh, pushback against that.

1242
00:59:27,825 --> 00:59:31,095
The NGOC Shepherd was, you
know, raising a fuss about that.

1243
00:59:31,095 --> 00:59:34,965
A lot of other, you know, concerned
people were, were up in arms about it.

1244
00:59:34,965 --> 00:59:38,115
There was some media coverage
and that resulted in the city

1245
00:59:38,265 --> 00:59:40,305
canceling the tender right.

1246
00:59:40,635 --> 00:59:41,385
In that instance.

1247
00:59:41,385 --> 00:59:48,705
So, um, you know, it does come to light in
a city here or there, but, um, you know,

1248
00:59:48,705 --> 00:59:51,435
I thought it was important to produce
this article because it shows that it's

1249
00:59:51,435 --> 00:59:52,905
not just one city here, one city there.

1250
00:59:52,905 --> 00:59:54,705
It's really a nationwide thing.

1251
00:59:54,735 --> 00:59:54,945
Yeah.

1252
00:59:55,365 --> 00:59:59,265
Um, so, you know, we, we published
the data along with the article.

1253
00:59:59,265 --> 01:00:03,375
There's a spreadsheet of the
thousand tenders that we found.

1254
01:00:03,615 --> 01:00:03,675
Yeah.

1255
01:00:03,675 --> 01:00:04,935
That took a long time to put together.

1256
01:00:04,935 --> 01:00:08,595
The reason why we put the time into
doing that was so if any local media

1257
01:00:08,595 --> 01:00:13,005
in Brazil wanna follow this up,
they can, you know, for writing for

1258
01:00:13,005 --> 01:00:17,775
their, their city newspaper or their
state newspaper, they can do that.

1259
01:00:17,775 --> 01:00:20,475
And, you know, there's gonna be a lot of
tenders out there that we didn't find.

1260
01:00:20,475 --> 01:00:22,545
This wasn't a comprehensive,
we didn't identify every tender

1261
01:00:22,545 --> 01:00:23,865
that's ever been issued for sharky.

1262
01:00:24,555 --> 01:00:26,775
A thousand of 'em is, I mean, there's
gonna be a lot more than that.

1263
01:00:26,805 --> 01:00:30,525
So, um, local journalists could
follow up, maybe find some more

1264
01:00:30,525 --> 01:00:34,455
tenders, um, if, if that's relevant
to them and they wanna do that.

1265
01:00:34,485 --> 01:00:38,655
Um, but I think it's something that could,
you know, there, there's more to be done.

1266
01:00:39,165 --> 01:00:40,755
Um, there's more to be reckoned with.

1267
01:00:40,965 --> 01:00:44,745
There's also, on the phishing
side, a debate happening in Brazil

1268
01:00:45,195 --> 01:00:50,715
about whether like targeted blue
shark fishing should be allowed.

1269
01:00:51,195 --> 01:00:53,265
Um, that's a whole nother side of it.

1270
01:00:53,265 --> 01:00:53,325
Yeah.

1271
01:00:53,505 --> 01:00:56,265
Um, and that's not just happening in
Brazil, it's happening in other countries.

1272
01:00:56,325 --> 01:00:56,505
Yeah.

1273
01:00:56,505 --> 01:00:56,865
As well.

1274
01:00:56,865 --> 01:00:56,925
Yeah.

1275
01:00:56,985 --> 01:00:58,335
So that's also really interesting.

1276
01:00:58,990 --> 01:01:03,195
I, and, and, uh, I should say, and I
know this is a feature article like

1277
01:01:03,195 --> 01:01:04,995
the, the original one, it, it's.

1278
01:01:05,370 --> 01:01:06,930
There's a lot of detail in this.

1279
01:01:07,259 --> 01:01:12,840
Um, even one, I think you did like a,
a, a, like a a dot matrix kind of anal

1280
01:01:12,930 --> 01:01:17,100
like analysis or looking at like these
bar graphs with the each dot representing

1281
01:01:17,100 --> 01:01:19,050
one unique recipient on this thing.

1282
01:01:19,050 --> 01:01:20,940
It's really cool to like scroll through.

1283
01:01:21,270 --> 01:01:22,770
Um, so the article's really great.

1284
01:01:22,770 --> 01:01:26,340
I highly recommend everybody who's
listening to this to go read the article.

1285
01:01:26,340 --> 01:01:28,890
'cause like there's so much information
in this and, and we'll link to

1286
01:01:28,890 --> 01:01:33,540
all three so that people can get,
uh, can, can be able to, to read

1287
01:01:33,540 --> 01:01:34,980
them all and go through them all.

1288
01:01:35,190 --> 01:01:37,259
I think it's, I think it's
something that's, that's.

1289
01:01:37,509 --> 01:01:38,200
Needed.

1290
01:01:38,500 --> 01:01:43,330
Um, and there's so many, it opens up
so many doors to research, not only

1291
01:01:43,330 --> 01:01:46,870
from a a journalist perspective,
but I think also from a conservation

1292
01:01:47,110 --> 01:01:51,430
and science perspective to really
understand the shark meat market,

1293
01:01:51,790 --> 01:01:56,140
uh, in internationally, not just, not
just in Brazil, but internationally.

1294
01:01:56,410 --> 01:01:59,980
Uh, so, so Philip, I wanna thank you
so much for, for coming on the, on

1295
01:01:59,980 --> 01:02:04,360
the show, uh, and, and sharing this
with us, this important article.

1296
01:02:04,570 --> 01:02:08,590
Um, once I started to read in this, I was
like, this has to, that we, we have to

1297
01:02:08,590 --> 01:02:10,360
have Phil on the show to talk about this.

1298
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:13,390
So I wanna thank you so much and I'd
love to have you back on, not only to

1299
01:02:13,390 --> 01:02:16,509
talk about this, but other articles that
you've written, uh, related to the ocean.

1300
01:02:17,560 --> 01:02:18,160
Thanks so much.

1301
01:02:18,160 --> 01:02:18,790
It means a lot.

1302
01:02:18,850 --> 01:02:22,030
Uh, you know, I got get, got that
nice feedback and uh, really had

1303
01:02:22,030 --> 01:02:23,170
a good time talking with you.

1304
01:02:23,170 --> 01:02:24,940
And I'm, I'm, I'm happy to come on again.

1305
01:02:25,330 --> 01:02:25,720
Awesome.

1306
01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:26,259
Thank you.

1307
01:02:27,210 --> 01:02:29,610
Thank you, Philip, for joining
us on today's episode of the How

1308
01:02:29,610 --> 01:02:30,750
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

1309
01:02:30,930 --> 01:02:32,220
It was so great to have you on.

1310
01:02:32,310 --> 01:02:36,570
What a story, something that we
don't realize even Philip mentioned.

1311
01:02:36,570 --> 01:02:38,280
You know, we know a lot about thinning.

1312
01:02:38,400 --> 01:02:42,570
We don't know a lot about how shark meat
is being consumed in various countries,

1313
01:02:42,870 --> 01:02:46,320
how non-transparent the supply chain is.

1314
01:02:46,320 --> 01:02:50,010
When we look at sharks, you know, he
mentioned there's a specific topic or

1315
01:02:50,010 --> 01:02:54,090
name for shark meat that's coming in,
but we don't know the actual species.

1316
01:02:54,090 --> 01:02:55,170
Those aren't identified.

1317
01:02:55,340 --> 01:02:56,420
We don't know if it's different species.

1318
01:02:56,420 --> 01:02:59,030
We don't know if it's one single
species and we don't know if there

1319
01:02:59,030 --> 01:03:01,760
are many more endangered species
and they're just like angel sharks.

1320
01:03:01,940 --> 01:03:04,040
So there's a lot to be uncovered.

1321
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:08,060
There's a lot of work to do to make
sure that these papers, these documents

1322
01:03:08,090 --> 01:03:11,990
are more transparent, making sure
that we understand what species is

1323
01:03:11,990 --> 01:03:15,560
being caught, what species is being
sold, is it allowed to be sold?

1324
01:03:15,710 --> 01:03:17,720
There are a lot of regulations
that need to happen.

1325
01:03:17,720 --> 01:03:21,710
It seems like the federal government is
on par with doing something about it.

1326
01:03:21,770 --> 01:03:25,610
However, the state or regional
governments as well as the local

1327
01:03:25,610 --> 01:03:26,660
governments and municipal governments.

1328
01:03:27,009 --> 01:03:28,960
Aren't really at that stage yet.

1329
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:32,020
And that's where a lot of the purchasing
is happening according to Philip.

1330
01:03:32,230 --> 01:03:33,310
And that is concerning.

1331
01:03:33,460 --> 01:03:34,630
It's a lot more to manage.

1332
01:03:34,630 --> 01:03:37,330
Whereas like if you have a federal
law that says that this is how

1333
01:03:37,330 --> 01:03:40,000
it's gonna be regulated, maybe
it'll be easier to move down.

1334
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:43,240
I don't know what the political
system is like in Brazil.

1335
01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:46,915
I don't know how much the federal
laws have influence on the state

1336
01:03:47,020 --> 01:03:50,110
and local levels, but you know,
they always could have some level.

1337
01:03:50,170 --> 01:03:54,279
But it would be great to see some kind
of regulation, some kind of transparency

1338
01:03:54,279 --> 01:03:57,850
in those regulations or demand for
transparency in those regulations.

1339
01:03:57,940 --> 01:04:01,330
Even requirement, not even demand a
requirement for transparency in those

1340
01:04:01,330 --> 01:04:04,509
regulations to make sure that we
know what species are being caught.

1341
01:04:04,509 --> 01:04:07,480
That's the first thing, like
information is key, monitoring is key.

1342
01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:11,170
If we don't have that information, we
cannot monitor, we cannot conserve.

1343
01:04:11,319 --> 01:04:12,790
And that's a big part of that.

1344
01:04:12,790 --> 01:04:16,630
As Philip mentioned, there's people at Del
Housie University who are working on that.

1345
01:04:16,870 --> 01:04:20,500
There are people all over the world who
are working on it in different countries,

1346
01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:24,669
and it seems like there's a lot of work
to do, a great chance for people to do a

1347
01:04:24,669 --> 01:04:29,620
PhD or a Master's degree on it or a master
project on it because this is something

1348
01:04:29,680 --> 01:04:33,549
that is necessary and it's something that
hasn't really been done in certain areas

1349
01:04:33,549 --> 01:04:37,270
before, and it's something that needs to
be done just so that we can understand

1350
01:04:37,299 --> 01:04:40,689
how these sharks are being consumed,
how they're being shipped all over the

1351
01:04:40,689 --> 01:04:43,569
world, how they're being caught, where
they're going, all that kind of stuff.

1352
01:04:43,569 --> 01:04:47,169
It's something that needs to be done
and I'm glad that this article came out.

1353
01:04:47,410 --> 01:04:49,765
I'm glad that we can
look at it in the future.

1354
01:04:50,490 --> 01:04:52,470
And I'm looking forward
to seeing what happens.

1355
01:04:52,470 --> 01:04:55,950
So thank you again to Phil to be
able to come on the podcast and

1356
01:04:55,950 --> 01:04:58,529
talk about this, and thank you,
the audience member for listening.

1357
01:04:58,529 --> 01:05:01,590
If you have any questions or comments,
let us know in the YouTube comments below.

1358
01:05:01,740 --> 01:05:04,590
Or if you're listening to this on your
favorite podcast app, you can go and

1359
01:05:04,590 --> 01:05:06,390
you want to comment or have a question.

1360
01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:07,830
You know, please let me know.

1361
01:05:07,860 --> 01:05:10,890
You can hit me up on Instagram
at How to Protect the Ocean.

1362
01:05:10,890 --> 01:05:13,350
Just DM me, it's at How
To Protect the Ocean.

1363
01:05:13,590 --> 01:05:17,100
Or you can go to speak up
for blue.com/contact and you

1364
01:05:17,100 --> 01:05:18,150
can just fill out the form.

1365
01:05:18,150 --> 01:05:19,080
It goes right to my email.

1366
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:20,340
I'd love to hear from you.

1367
01:05:20,460 --> 01:05:22,920
But thank you so much for joining
me on today's episode of the How

1368
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:24,029
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

1369
01:05:24,029 --> 01:05:27,345
I'm your host Angel and from the true
nor strong and free, have a great day.

1370
01:05:27,345 --> 01:05:29,610
We'll talk to you next time
and happy conservation.