University of Exeter
Browse

Using DNA Barcoding to Investigate Patterns of Species Utilisation in UK Shark Products Reveals Threatened Species on Sale

Download (1.65 MB)
journal contribution
posted on 2025-08-01, 00:19 authored by CAD Hobbs, RWA Potts, M Bjerregaard Walsh, J Usher, AM Griffiths
Many shark populations are in decline, primarily due to overexploitation. In response, conservation measures have been applied at differing scales, often severely restricting sales of declining species. Therefore, DNA barcoding was used to investigate sales of shark products in fishmongers and fish and chip takeaways in England. The majority of samples were identified as Spiny Dogfish (Squalus acanthias), which is critically endangered in the Northeast Atlantic and landings have been prohibited (although there is evidence of importation of this species). Significant differences in the species sold between retailer types were also identified, suggesting differing supply chains. The results underline issues surrounding the use of ‘umbrella’ sales terms where many species are labelled with the same designation. This denies consumer choice as purchasers cannot easily avoid declining species or those associated with high levels of toxicants. For the first time in Europe, minibarcodes are also used to identify species from dried shark fins. Despite a small sample size, analysis of UK wholesaler fins identified threatened sharks, including the endangered and CITES listed Scalloped Hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini). This highlights the global nature of the damaging trade in endangered shark species, in which Europe and the UK have a continuing role.

Funding

Fisheries Society of the British Isles

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust

University of Exeter

History

Related Materials

Rights

© The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Notes

This is the final version. Available on open access from Nature Research via the DOI in this record

Journal

Scientific Reports

Publisher

Nature Research

Version

  • Version of Record

Language

en

FCD date

2019-04-09T10:14:50Z

FOA date

2019-04-09T10:17:55Z

Citation

Vol. 9, article 1028

Department

  • Archive

Usage metrics

    University of Exeter

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Keywords

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC