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

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What if the fish on your child'sschool lunch tray was endangered?
Shark loaded with toxic chemicals.
How would you feel about that?
Well, that's been the topic of articleseries from Mongabay News where they
uncovered thousands of tons of shark meatpurchases in Brazil's public institutions.
That's schools, that's elderlycare, facilities and prisons.

(00:22):
Something that is concerning isthe amount of institutions we're
looking at over 5,900 institutionswhere they're serving shark meat.
This is something that is very concerningbecause some of the shark meat is angel
sharks, which is an endangered species,and it's mislabeled as angel fish.
So you think angel fish, like yougo into an aquarium and you look at
angel fish, you're like, oh, okay.

(00:42):
Well, those are found on reefs and they'refound in tropical areas, but we don't
really know if they're endangered or not.
Or there's some that are and somethat aren't, but it's probably fine.
No, this is Angel Sharks, not angel fish.
Angel sharks.
And they're being served at schools.
Now we look at the public healthperspective of it and you know,
sharks are known to have elevatedlevels of mercury and arsenic.

(01:03):
So there's a lot of problems with having,you know, shark as your lunch meal each
and every day while you're at school.
And we're gonna be talking about whythis is so problematic and why things
need to change and what these articleshave actually sparked in Brazil.
It definitely sparked a debate and we'regonna hear about it from Philip Jacobson,
who is one of the journalists who coveredthis article, and he's here to talk

(01:27):
about the process, how it all came tobe, what he discovered during that time,
and what the articles have done in Brazilin sparking this debate on this episode
of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
Let's start the show.
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to another exciting episodeof the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
This is the podcast where you findout what's happening with the ocean,
how you can speak up for the ocean,and what you can do to live for

(01:50):
a better ocean by taking action.
On today's episode, we'vegot a special one for you.
You know, normally I coverMongabay news articles.
I do that quite often.
It's something that I really enjoybecause Mongabay News puts out
really great original articles,investigative reporting, beat reporting.
It's just a lot of fun, entertaining,but also very knowledgeable.
I'm learning things all the time,especially in places around the world

(02:10):
where you don't hear about oceans, aboutwildlife, about forests and so forth,
and it's something that's really great.
Now, I am not beingsponsored by Monga Bay.
I literally just enjoy.
Their articles, and I'm very honoredto be able to have one of the
journalists, Philip Jacobson, who wasspearheaded this series of articles
on the shark meat that's servedin Brazilian public institutions.

(02:31):
It really sparked a topic wherehe looked at the procurement
announcements that were happening.
They have to be public, they haveto be transparent in Brazil, and
he started going through them andstarted noticing specific patterns
that were considered shark meat.
You're gonna hear aboutthat in the interview.
How he discovered that and what he wantedand where that led him into revealing what
was happening in these public institutionsand how much shark meat is being

(02:53):
consumed, and how non-transparent thatpart is, that procurement transparent,
but not what sharks are being broughtin, what sharks are being consumed, how
they're being consumed and so forth.
So there's a lot of things that we'regonna go through in this article in
Philip Jacobson, who's a journalist atMongabay News, who's based in Thailand,
is joining us to be able to talk about.
So here is the interview with Philip.

(03:15):
Talking about shark meat inpublic institutions in Brazil.
Enjoy the interview andI will talk to you after.
Hey Philip, welcome to the Howto Protect the Ocean Podcast.
Are you ready to talk about sharkmeat in Brazilian kids lunches?
This is kind of crazy.
Are you ready to talk about that?
I most certainly am.
Thanks so much for having me.
Uh, very happy to be here.
I'm happy to have you here, Philip.

(03:36):
Uh, this is something that,uh, I've been excited to have.
'cause first of all, we're gonna findout in just a sec, but you are one of
the journalists that work at Monga Bay.
Monga Bay is one of my favorite,uh, in like internet sites that
we have on environmental news.
Uh, as I've told you right before,we recorded, uh, we cover it a lot
here on the podcast and I, if, ifanybody is on our newsletter, we

(03:57):
see at least a one Monga Bay articlepretty much five days a week.
Uh, so it's always great to beable to have someone on in person.
I think Eric Hoffner was thelast one who was on here.
Um, but it was, it was greatto be able to have you on here.
'cause we're gonna be talkingabout a specific story, actually,
a series now, a three partstory that has a, an interesting
result from the first two parts.

(04:18):
Um, 'cause I was just posted as,as we're recording today, just,
just up today, um, on, you know,lunch meat, having shark meat.
Really, it's, it's, it's, uh, kids arehaving shark meat for their lunches in
Brazil, which is pretty much like, Ifeel like, you know, from North America.
That sounds really out there, but thereare kids programs that have fish in it

(04:38):
because it's such a good protein source.
Um, but this one is with shark meatin it and I think it's interesting
of what that shark meat can do.
Is it really safe?
We're gonna find out all of that,um, with the story and how it
developed, uh, and really go throughthat journalistic process, which I'm
really excited about 'cause I'm veryinterested in that kind of stuff too.
But before we begin with all that,Philip, why don't you just let us
know who you are and what you do?

(05:00):
Uh, yeah.
Thanks a lot Andrew.
Um, so I'm Philip Jacobson.
Um, I'm an American journalistliving in, currently based in
Thailand, Chiang, my Thailand.
And uh, I'm an editor anda reporter for Mongabay.
Mongabay is a, it's anenvironmental news site.
Um, I first joined in 2015.

(05:20):
I was covering in Indonesia at the time.
I lived there for quite some time.
And um, back then it was maybe 20 people.
Um, today it's, it's about 120people, so, um, incredible.
It's, uh, yeah, it's grown a lot.
Uh, you don't see that a lot in,in journalism these days, but, um,
manga Bay is a nonprofit, uh, newsoutlet, so we get a lot of, we got

(05:40):
our funds from donor foundations,private donors, that sort of thing.
Um, so yeah, we've got bureaus in, um,Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia,
Indonesia, um, we have an Oceans Desk.
Um, and so, yeah, so I, Iembarked on this project.

(06:02):
Uh, it was part of a, uh, afellowship with the Pulitzer Center.
Okay.
Which is a big funderin the journalism space.
And, uh, the project was, uh, to, uh,investigating the global shark trade.
So that's where this all started.
And that's, that's huge.
Uh, like, I mean, that's not likea, a small problem, you know?
And we know this is aninternational problem.
It's some, it's something worldwide.

(06:24):
From, from you as a journalist.
Have you Al, had you always wantedto be an environmental journalist
or even a journalist at all?
Yeah, I mean, I came to itthrough, uh, through journalism.
Um, okay.
Not necessarily environmental journalism.
Um, so I grew up inChicago, um, LA and Chicago.
And, uh, in, in my high school newspaper,I worked on the high school newspaper.

(06:47):
I was editor in chief in my highschool newspaper as a senior.
It's like, is how, you know, a lot ofjournalists get their start, I guess.
Yeah.
Um, college, I, you know, I majored injournalism and then, uh, after graduation,
I, uh, I was looking for, uh, looking fora job and, uh, I wanted to live abroad.
Mm-hmm.
So, uh, I found a job as a copyeditor at the Jakarta Globe.

(07:09):
Okay.
Which is, uh, yeah, it's an Englishlanguage paper in Jakarta, Indonesia.
So, uh, I went there, had that jobfor a year, and then, you know,
I was there as a copy editor.
You're reading the,uh, the news every day.
And, um, it's a great, uh, it's agreat introduction to a country.
As a journalist.
You start to get a sense of thecurrent events and the issues.

(07:30):
And over the course of that year, Istarted to, you know, I started to think
if I could, if I could learn the languageand kind of get outta the capitol, um,
you know, I could, there, there's so manystories to report and that's what I did.
Um, spent a couple years freelancing.
Um, had a part-time job with, uh, tempoMagazine, which is an Indonesian magazine.
They do a lot of investigativework and, uh, at tempo I started

(07:52):
doing some environmental stories.
Um, Indonesia, it's got, youknow, a ton of rainforest.
Mm-hmm.
A ton of biodiversity.
They've also got a lot of industriesthat are, you know, causing
deforestation and biodiversity loss.
Things like the palm oilindustry, pulp and paper
industry, um, that sort of thing.
So I covered that a bit of tempo.
And then job at Mongabay openedup in 2015 and, uh, applied for

(08:16):
it, ended up getting it, and yeah.
Uh, ever since I've, uh, I'vereally enjoyed working in Manga Bay.
It's a great place to work and, uh,you know, we have an opportunity
to do, to do journalism like this.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm proud of the storyand, um, I'm excited to talk about it.
It feels like it's such aunique experience to be able
to do journalism abroad.
You know, growing up in NorthAmerica, like I live in Canada,

(08:38):
you, you grew up in, in, in theStates, there's this protection
that is afforded to journalists.
You know, if you work within NorthAmerica, let's say, um, we've seen a
lot of journalists, like, I think a lotof the journalists who cover war areas.
Obviously there's danger in that and,and we've seen it, uh, recently in,
in, in different areas around the worldwhere journalists are, are getting hurt.

(09:02):
And I know for con from a conservationiststandpoint, scientists and
conservationists who are doing workabroad in a lot of different countries,
uh, whether it be in South America,central America, uh, Southeast Asia, I,
you know, they don't have necessarilythe protections that would be afforded
to them in the, in Canada or the USif they work on specific, uh, areas.
What's it like to work.

(09:23):
As a journalist that's, that's originallyfrom North America, to go over to
places like Indonesia and Thailandto do the work that you were doing.
'cause some of these storiesthat are, that are posted on
Monga Bay are not necessarilylike, oh, look at this country.
They're doing a great job at fisheries,or they're doing a great job.
Some of them are very investigativejournalists, the journalism pieces,

(09:45):
and, um, they can call out some things,you know, that, that they see, that you
guys see as, as a problem and so forth.
Are you ever worried in, inthat case, or have you ever had
any problems in those areas?
Uh, you know, in terms of like,threats, threats to your, your
personal, like personal safety?

(10:06):
Yeah, so it's an interesting question.
Um, you know, manga Bay operates in alot of different contexts, so it's kind
of different depending on the country.
But, um, yeah, as you've, asyou've, as you've noted, um, in
some countries it's, it's certainlyharder to operate than others.
Um.
If the dynamic can shift a bit, dependingon if you're a foreign journalist or a
national in that particular country, um,you know, foreigners can be deported.

(10:30):
Mm-hmm.
Um, but locals can be, you know, messedaround with in, uh, in other ways.
So, um, you know, sometimes youdo an investigation, you know, a
company might threaten to sue you.
That's happened on stories I've worked on.
Um, you know, I've neverbeen threatened personally.
Right.
But, um, I did, um, I did spend a fewdays in prison once, uh, in Indonesia.

(10:52):
So, um Oh, wow.
Yeah.
That's, uh, that back in 2020.
That's been interesting.
It was, it was very interesting.
Most interesting experienceI never wanna have again.
Yes, yes, yes.
Let's stay outta there.
But it was very interestingand, um, you know, um, it's, um.
You can often work with local journalists,um, in a, uh, in, in a, in an effective

(11:14):
way, a foreigner and a local mm-hmm.
Um, can often be a potent combination.
Um, you know, I came to Southeast Asiaworking for an English language newspaper.
That is a, uh, it's, it's a waythat a lot of Western journalists
get into foreign correspondence.
Um, um, you know, there used to be,uh, two English language newspapers
in Cambodia, um, publications inMyanmar, um, Indonesia, Thailand.

(11:40):
So it's, it's a bit, some ofthose have folded in the past
couple years, um, which is sad.
Mm-hmm.
Because a lot of the people I knowwho've, um, gone on to, to pretty
impressive careers in, um, foreigncorrespondence got their start at
places like the Cambodia Daily or thePanAm Pen Post, or the Jakarta Globe.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but, you know, certainly, uh, myfriends who worked at the Cambodian

(12:01):
publications who would often be aforeigner and a Cambodian journalist
kind of working together, so, uh, gotcha.
That, that can work pretty well.
Um.
And that's what we did in, um, inthis story, uh, the Shark Meat story,
uh, my colleague Carla Mendez, who's,uh, who's a really great Brazilian
journalist based in Rio de Janeiro,we worked on this story together.
Um, so, um, yeah, that was anew experience for me in Brazil.

(12:23):
But, um, uh, I think it's, uh, youknow, possible to operate there.
So, yeah.
No, that's good.
That's good to hear.
'cause you just never know.
Right.
And, and obviously we don't want,uh, we don't want anybody to get
to get hurt and they wanna beable to do your job effectively.
Uh, you know, and in this case,you're, you're protecting, uh, you
know, people who are vulnerable kids.
Right.
Which is, which is really important.

(12:45):
Before we get into this particularstory, uh, something I've always
been interested in is how.
Do you develop these typesof stories like on Monga Bay?
Because there's somethingdifferent about Monga Bay than
your, your other news reports.
I mean, one is very, it's allenvironmentally focused, right?
It's so, it's whether it's, uh,forest like RA rainforests or, um,

(13:08):
you know, uh, you know, shark meator ocean focused or wildlife focused.
It's, it's pretty much has anenvironmental, uh, topic or focus, right?
Um, but it's, it's, it's just,there's, it's just unique.
It's, these are original stories whichare hard to come by, uh, these days.
And, but they're deep,they're not just like.

(13:30):
Oh, I'm gonna think of a topic andI'm gonna just write, you know, to
be honest, I, I do that sometimes.
Like, I'll read a Manga Bay newsarticle and I'll be like, oh, I'm
gonna use that as a basis to talkabout another particular subject.
But you guys, when you put a, astory together, this is not a story.
You just think of thatday and then write it.
This is something, sometimes it couldbe months, if not years, uh, weeks,

(13:53):
months, years in the making to, totry and make this what goes into a
story that's published on Manga Bay.
You've been there for quitesome time over 10 years.
What, what goes intothat, that type of story?
Sure.
Um, well, we publish, um, wepublish in different formats.
So we publish, uh, short news,we publish articles, we publish
longer features, and we publishinvestigations, videos, podcasts.

(14:16):
Um, but what goes into it is, I mean,just like any, you know, newspaper that's
worth our salt is, uh, you know, goodold fashioned beat reporting, right?
So we have reporters in these places.
Um, who follow these issuesfor a period of time.
Um, get to know the sources involvedand, um, develop a certain amount of

(14:39):
knowledge about the, about the issue.
And, um, once you do that for a certainamount of time, um, you know, you start
to see where the stories are, right?
You start to, you know, a, a, a storythat might not be published in the form
of a, you know, an academic paper ora, or a press release or an NGO report.
I mean, those things can be goodto cover and we do cover those.
But, uh, it's when you start to followan issue for, um, for an extended period

(15:01):
of time, um, and, and, and, and know the,the stakeholders, the people involved,
that you start to see where the storieslie, um, that haven't been covered, that
are, uh, you know, right to be told.
So, um, you know, that'swhat we do at Manga Bay.
Um, for example, um, on the Southeast Asiadesk we have, um, four staff reporters.

(15:21):
Um, there's two in Jakarta,there's two in, uh, Bangkok.
We have, uh, two editors.
We also have a network of freelancerswho are pitching us stories, who
we assign stories to sometimes.
Um, and you know, we have our, kind of,our issues that that, that we cover.
Um, same with our Africa desk or ourLatin America Desk, or our Oceans

(15:42):
Desk or our Wildlife Trade Desk.
Um, so, um, you know, that's how we do it.
Um, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's, I think it's interesting.
I I, I, I really like that, um, because,you know, putting all this stuff into a
story and being able to collaborate withothers and having that geographic sort

(16:03):
of spatial extent is, is, is pretty key.
'cause we don't hear a lot ofstories within these areas.
Um, and I think that's what makesit quite unique, um, which is great.
Let's, let's get into tothis story in particular.
Um, you know, this is, you know,we're looking at fish for, for, uh,
for lunches, for kids in Brazil.

(16:24):
Um, you know, it's really shark meat.
Uh, there's a lot that goes in withshark meat if, if they're, they're, um,
they're fed to developing kids, you know,kids who are, who are still developing
in their, in their growth and theirbrain growth and, and a lot of growth.
That, and we know that there'sa lot of stuff that, that is in,
uh, shark meat that is not verygood if you eat it too much.

(16:45):
And so every day, that'ssounds like a lot.
So why don't you just talk a littlebit about, um, how this story really
began, uh, right from the beginningand then how it developed into this
story, this three part series, it seems.
Sure.
So, so I did this story as part of a,as I mentioned, as part of a fellowship

(17:06):
with the, uh, Pulitzer Center.
And the, the thrust of thatproposal was to, uh, investigate
the global shark trade.
So, uh, one of the topics that Iwas interested in looking at was
the rise of the shark meat industry.
Mm-hmm.
Shark meat.
So I think a lot of peopleknow about shark fins.

(17:26):
Yes.
Shark fin soup in Asia, you know,the practice of shark thinning.
Um, I'm sure your, your listenersare familiar, but, um Yep.
We've covered it extensively.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, you know, you, you, you catchthe shark, you cut off the fins,
you throw the rest of the body back.
So, um, yeah, I wanted to look atthe shark meat industry, the shark
meat trade, and um, Brazil is a topconsumer and importer of shark meat,

(17:52):
so it made sense to look at Brazil.
Um, this is something, the factthat they're a top consumer and
importer that's well documented.
Um, you know, people whofollow this issue know that.
But, um, as I started to approach variousconservationists, government people,
et cetera, um, to talk about Brazil'sshark me trade and learn more about

(18:15):
it, um, you know, I started to, to hearabout, um, government procurements.
Is happening.
And this is something, you know, I I,I'd see it, it had been mentioned in,
in published studies and articles.
Um, yeah.
And my colleague Carla hadinterviewed somebody who mentioned it.
Um, so it's not something thatwas completely hidden, but it
was, it was never, it was neverexpounded on in any depth or length.

(18:35):
It was always just kind of a, anoffhanded mention in the middle of some
study, in the middle of some articles.
So, um, you know, I thought that thatcould be an interesting angle, right?
I mean, if, if they're serving itin schools or hospitals and that
kind of thing, but how do you, howdo you show that this is happening?
Mm-hmm.
How do you approach this journalistically?
Um, so as I, as I talked to, I talkedto a few people who mentioned to me

(18:58):
that Brazil has a transparency law.
Brazil has a transparency law,which requires government agencies
to publish procurement data, right?
So if you're, if you're the educationdepartment and you know, city X,
you know, you've gotta publish.

(19:19):
All the calls for tenderthat you, that you issue.
Right.
If you're right, if you say, I wantto buy, you know, a thousand pounds
of chicken for, uh, the local hospitalthat goes on a website somewhere.
Yeah.
So, um, a few people mention, you know,hey, if you, if you, uh, if you have a
lot of time on your hands, you know, youcould probably, you know, hunt around
some of these websites and, uh, you know,you, you'll find shark meat procurements.

(19:44):
So, um, you know, because you hadall that time start to think, well,
you know, this is, do a year forthis fellowship and, uh, you know.
Yeah.
Uh, so that's what we did basically.
Yeah.
Um, so that's what we did.
That was kind of the premiseof this investigation.
So, um, you know, I, I haddone a story like that before
in Indonesia where you, um.

(20:06):
You know, you go on a bunch of governmentwebsites and you build a database
of, in that case it was court cases.
Mm-hmm.
That was a story about, uh, traditionalfarmers and on the island of Borneo
getting criminally prosecutedfor using fire to clear land.
It's a big issue there.
Caused a lot of air pollution.
So, uh, yeah.
You know, we went and we built a databaseof those, uh, those, those prosecutions.
Uh, just, but, um, so thiswas, in a way it was similar.

(20:29):
We thought, okay, let's, wecan, we can build a database
of shark meat procurements.
Um, so it sounds straightforward,but, uh, there were a lot of,
a lot of, uh, difficulties.
Um, you know, it's not a lot of reasonswhy it's not so straightforward.
One of which is that, um, there'sno central, it's not like there's
one website you can go on to findall the procurements in Brazil.

(20:50):
Mm-hmm.
Um, every state has its own.
Transparency portal.
Every city has its owntransparency portal.
Oh, there's a federal transparency portal.
There's thousands of cities in Brazil.
So it's like, how do you,how do you approach this?
Um, so we thought, okay, let's,let's pick, you know, four states.
Start there.

(21:11):
Um, and so one of the authors of thisstory, one of the bylines on this story
is, uh, my colleague King, he's thedata editor at the Pulitzer Center.
Um, so he, you know, I worked very closelywith him to, uh, we tried to figure out
a way to scrape these websites, right?
Right.
So he used his magical coding abilitiesto, uh, to build these bots that

(21:32):
would go on these portals mm-hmm.
And try to scrape, uh,shark meat procurement.
So, um, so we did that for four states.
It was the state of SaoPaulo Rio de Janeiro.
And, um, what was the other one?
Um, I think it was Parina.
Um, and I'm, of course I'm manglingthe pronunciations of some of those,
but, um, so that's what we did.

(21:53):
I mean, um, that's what we did andthere was a lot of manual labor that
was involved in there, you know, havingto verify what the robots gave us.
And, um, we also went on a lot ofcity municipal transparency portals
to find more shark meat tenders.
Um, so that's kind of in a nutshell.
I can, I can go into more detailabout, about that process.
But, um, that was kind of the,the meat of the investigation.

(22:15):
And then we, um, of course once weidentified all these shark meat tenders,
um, we, we sought to contact the, theagencies that were buying the shark
meat, um, the public institutions thatwere receiving the shark meat, uh,
the companies that were supplying theshark meat, um, all that kind of thing.
Um, and you know, one of thereasons, uh, why it wasn't so

(22:38):
straightforward is that shark meatin Brazil, um, it's not actually.
Sold under the label Shark Meat.
It's called something else.
It's called, it has this generic label.
It's called Caan.
Um, so Caan is like, it's a, it's a,it's a common suffix in Portuguese.
Okay.
It's like in English it would be like,you know, ca like vacation or convocation.

(23:01):
So it's just that, thatca you know, so, okay.
So, so it's called, it'ssold under the name Caan.
And, and, um, because it's asuffix, like it, it becomes really
hard to search these portals forCaan because you search cassan.
It actually brings up anything withthe word that, that has that in it.
Right.
It's, it's not a very, thesearen't very sophisticated
search platforms like Google.

(23:21):
You can't ask, yougenerally can't ask them to.
So that, that, that presented a wholehost of issues we had to overcome.
Um, oh man, that's a lot.
That does mess it up.
Yeah.
So that's kinda the basics of how weapproach the data gathering exercise.
Now, further along into the story, do thechildren and, and rightfully the parents

(23:43):
know that they're having shark meat?
Uh, that's a good question.
I think the answer is almost always no.
Hmm.
Um, people don't know that cassan isshark for the most part in Brazil.
Right.
Um, there's surveys that show thatmost people who buy cassan don't
know that it's actually shark.
Right.

(24:03):
Um, and this is a commonthing in, in fish.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Um, so it's not widely known.
Um, you know, these packages don't havelabels that say like, this is shark.
The word for shark andPortuguese is uba, UBA, brown.
Um, and that's typicallynot on the labels.
There's typically not a species name oranything like that, so people don't know.

(24:25):
Um, and so one of the people who was, uh.
Featured in the article is, is awoman who, uh, her name is Solan Ami.
And she, um, she's a, uh, aneducator in a city that's in the
Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area.
And, um, she's also president of theMunicipal School Feeding Council, which

(24:47):
kind of has a role in, um, you know, the,the meal program for schools in that city.
So she, she told us a story about how, um,maybe around four years ago, she noticed
that kids, you know, weren't eating, um,the Caan, which was served every Monday.
Um, and, you know, shestarted to look into it.
And, and it was only when she wenthome and did some research that

(25:09):
she realized that Cassan was shark.
And she starts to, to read, youknow, some of the, the studies out
there that say shark meat, you know,tends to be high in heavy metals
like mercury and arsenic, right?
Because sharks are apexpredators that bioaccumulate.
Right.
These substances andtheir, and their tissue.
So, and she became concerned and soshe, over the past few years has been

(25:30):
trying to get the municipal educationdepartment in this, in this city to
remove casa from, uh, the school mealprogram, replace it with a different fish.
Um, you know, they wantto be serving fish.
Uh, there's an, there's a program inBrazil to get people to eat more fish.
It's, it's seen as healthyand, you know, like the source
of fish protein and all that.
Yeah.
Um, but she wanted 'emto stop serving Casa.

(25:52):
Um, and to this day, she'sbeen unable to do so.
Um, you know, one thing that we,that we heard a lot from the, um,
government officials that we talkedto, um, the, the, the government
nutritionists that draw up these menus,um, which inform these procurements
is that shark meat is, is appealingbecause it, it doesn't have bones.

(26:12):
Hmm.
So, uh, yeah.
So this boneless flesh is, uh,it's, it's appealing to people.
In places like Brazil, um, who arequite often concerned with, uh,
choking on bones, they're afraidthat a kid's gonna choke on a bone,
parents are gonna sue the school.
Um, that kind of a thing.
You know, kids can go to the hospital.
So, I mean, for me, that was surprising.
'cause I, you know, I grew up, Ihaven't really heard that in the us.

(26:34):
I grew up eating fish.
You know, bones was neverlike that kind of a concern.
But in the reporting for this project,something I've heard from people in
a lot of countries where maybe fishconsumption isn't such a normal thing.
People are, people areafraid of choking on bones.
So that's a big reason for the appeal ofserving sharks to kids, especially kids.
Um, but as we know, heavy metals likemercury and arsenic can, can affect,

(26:55):
uh, and they can affect anybodyif you, if you eat enough of it.
Yep.
Um, according to the science.
But, um, you know, kids, especially likethe developing brains they can affect,
um, those substances can affect developingbrains even, even more and more quickly
than, you know, somebody who eats it.
X amount of times per weekover the course of a lifetime.
So, um, yeah, I think the famous case,I think the famous case out of that

(27:16):
was, uh, an actor Jeremy Vin, whowas in Entourage and many other, uh,
shows and, and movies where I, I, Ithink he was like Scavo 'cause he just
ate sushi every day for like decades.
And when he went in to get hisblood tested, they were like,
we don't know how you're alive.
'cause he had so much mercury in his,in his system and they had to like do

(27:40):
almost like a, like a, i I, I don'tknow the term, but it was a, it was a
blood transfusion that where they hadto replace a lot of his blood because
there was so much mercury and he wasin the hospital for quite some time.
Um, and, and so that's likeone of the famous things and
that's eating it every day.
Obviously that's an extreme 'causenot everybody eats fish every day, but
if you're having, if you're a childand you're eating it five times a
day and you're developing, like whatare the age groups of the children

(28:03):
that are eating this, this meat?
It's as young as it gets, man.
It's um.
Because the homelessnessis part of the appeal.
Yeah.
Even younger.
Younger, like early childhood education.
Yeah.
And yes, primary school, likekindergarten, first grade.
Right.
Um, you know, in our, in our, inour investigation, we, that was a
question that we asked, like how,you know, I think we identified, um,

(28:27):
5,900 institutions, like individualschools or hospitals that were listed
as potential recipients of sharp meatin these tenders that we identified.
Most of them were schools.
Yeah.
And we found at least athousand, more than a thousand,
um, early childhood schools.

(28:47):
Interesting.
Um, wow.
So, yeah.
I mean, not just small children,but also some elderly care centers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was a, there was a, an agency in,in Rio de Janeiro that told us, um, they
were, they were, they were buying sharkmeat for a, a shelter for disabled kids.
Kids with intellectual disabilities,they, they saw it as, um, as, you know,

(29:12):
as good for those, those kids becausemaybe they have a harder time chewing.
So the boneless meat was, um, was seenas appealing for those kids just 'cause
it was boneless meat at this point.
Yeah.
Like, that's major difference.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, so, you know, it's, it'svery widely adopted in Brazil.
I mean, it's, you know, it's not justrestaurants, it's not just supermarkets.

(29:33):
And I, you know, I walked around, Iwas in Sao Paulo and I just wanted
to see how wide widespread it was.
I think I went to, I don't know,25, 30 grocery stores, supermarkets,
convenience stores, and I think almostall of 'em had shark meat on sale
in the, in the frozen food section,sometimes in the fresh food section.
So it's, yeah, Sao Pao is,is a place where it's very

(29:54):
commonly, very commonly served.
It's interesting 'cause Sao Paulo's, theyhave a lot of vegetarian restaurants.
It's known for having like amazingvegan vegetarian food, but it's
also, I suppose, known for havinga lot of shark meat on offers.
So.
Interesting.
I wonder if that's the case.
Like if, if there are people whoare mostly vegetarian but will take
protein, a lot of the times it's, it'ssome sort of seafood or fish, right?

(30:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That I've seen anecdotally.
I don't know if that's like widelyknown, but people who are vegetarian
who don't, are, aren't fully vegetarian,but they'll eat because a lot of people,
like, I'm vegetarian, but I eat fish.
You know, and, and so like, theystill get the healthy, they get,
they get the, the good proteins andthe fatty acids and, and so forth.
Uh, and, and the, the minerals and stuff.
But I maybe that's, I wonderif that's a reason why as well.

(30:38):
It's so popular there.
Yeah.
I wonder, you know, I don't know.
I don't know where this termcassan comes from even, um, yeah.
Why, why that took hold.
Um, you know, I've heard variousthings, but nothing really solid.
Um mm-hmm.
Um, so yeah, it's an interesting question.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, like when we talk about having,like, why, why are we worried about

(30:59):
this story really like the, you know.
People eat fish, people eat sharks.
We know sometimes there's, there's fraud.
But it sounds like, you know,there's like seafood fraud.
But it sounds like, you know, peoplelike the government is putting it up
as procurement people are buying this.
A lot of people knowthey're buying sharks.
Uh, the kids may not know and the parentsmay not know they're eating sharks.
But why is this, uh, let's, let'stalk about like the, the issues

(31:21):
like from a a public healthperspective, why is this an issue?
Yeah, sure.
So, um, why are we concerned about,you know, thousands of tons of shark
meat being bought by governmentagencies in a country like Brazil?
Um, so there's really two sides of it.
Um, one side is the publichealth side, which we touched on,

(31:41):
can talk about that some more.
Um, you know, the presence of heavymetals in these, in these fish.
Um, the other side issustainability, right?
So sharks are, generally speaking,are declining across the world.
You know, there was a study thatthat showed that shark abundance
has declined by like 71%.
Over the past 50 years.

(32:03):
So, you know, sharks are beingoverfished, sharks are in trouble.
Um, and, um, you know, shark meatis, um, is a growing industry.
Mm-hmm.
And that is driving theoverfishing of sharks.
So when you identify kind of this hiddendriver of the shark meat industry in the

(32:24):
form of widespread government procurementsin, you know, one of the biggest countries
in the world, which also by the way couldbe happening in other countries, other
countries, governments, you know, I'veheard could be procuring shark meat.
Maybe not on the same scale asBrazil, but I've heard Portugal,
I've heard some other places as well.
Um, you know, that is, um, youknow, an issue worth considering.
Um, now look, I'm not gonnatell anybody, you know, you can

(32:47):
never, ever eat shark, right?
Mm-hmm.
You know, people have beeneating sharks since probably
the beginning of human history.
Right.
Um, you know, we humanseat a lot of things.
Um, you know, I'm from, I livefor eight years in Indonesia.
There's a place in Indonesia.
Um, in the northern part of theisland of Solei where they're
known to eat just about anything.
I think the, the saying there is ifit, uh, if it, if it crawls, swims,

(33:08):
flies, or walks, you know, we eat it.
So, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm notgonna say nobody should ever reach shark.
Uh, some people would say that.
Um, yeah.
But, um, you know, as a journalist,I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say that,
but, um, you know, um, what's happenedis, um, there's been a shift from this
traditional shark meat consumption, right?
Like, you know Yep.
Tradition.
The villages here and there, indigenouspeoples here and there to what we

(33:30):
have today, which is, which is thisbig industrial scale fishing of
sharks and consumption of shark meat.
So, um, you know, to the extent whereyou have hundreds of companies in Brazil
that are involved in the distributionof shark meat, um, which we show in our
investigation, I think we identified moresomewhere between 200 and 250 companies

(33:53):
that were supplying government agencies.
Um.
You know, that, that, thatwe, those are only the tenders
that we, that we compiled.
So, um, yeah.
You know, this has becomea massive global industry.
Shark meat, I think is worth hundreds ofmillions of dollars a year according to
the WWF study published in I think 2021.
Um, so it's big business.

(34:14):
Um, it's a massive industry and, um,you know, I think at the very least,
um, you know what a lot of peoplewill say is that there should, there
should at the very least be clearlabeling on these products, right?
Yeah.
So some of the nutritionists whoput Cassan on the menu, they didn't
even know that Cassan was shark.
Mm-hmm.
They didn't know about the toxicology.

(34:35):
They don't study toxicology in Braziliannutritionist school, and they didn't
know about the sustainability issues.
It was all news to them.
So, um, I think at the very least, weshould be making informed decisions about.
These kinds of, these kinds of foods.
Um, you know, maybe there is a way tosustainably fish shark and, and, you
know, harvest their meat and, and servetheir meat in public institutions.

(34:59):
But, um, I think a prerequisite forthat should certainly be, um, you
know, clear labeling, um, at least, atleast knowing what we're dealing with.
Um, and that, by the way, is anissue in shark fishing more broadly.
I mean, the data's not verygood for some of these species.
Like it's hard to don't reallyknow the status of some of these
species that we're fishing.
Um, and you know, the blue sharkis the species that is the most

(35:19):
commonly traded in the world today.
That's a big oceanic shark.
Um, oh, I'm sorry.
Did I?
Nope.
You're all good.
Okay.
I'm sorry I minimized my window.
Um, but you're still good?
No, you're all good.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
So sorry about that.
So the blue shark is, um, themost commonly traded species.
Um, you know, it's, um, the industrywill say that, you know, the industry

(35:41):
will argue that it's possible tosustainably fish the blue shark.
Um.
Some conservationists will counterthat, you know, the data on blue
sharks isn't, that, isn't that good?
We don't really knowhow, how they're doing.
You know, we don't, we don't maybehave the data showing that they're
not doing very good, but, but, uh,we also don't have data showing
that they're doing really well.

(36:02):
Yeah.
So, um, we should maybe take theprecautionary right approach.
Um, so that's a debate that'shappening right now in, you know,
in the regional fisheries managementorganizations, the RFMOs, yeah.
In, in national governments,national, um, settings like Brazil.
I mean, sharks are really, I thinkat a crossroads right now globally in
Brazil in a number of other countries.

(36:24):
Spain, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and the RFMOs.
You know, people are just, I thinkstarting to realize that, that these
big shark fishing industries existwhere boats are not only catching
sharks as bycatch, but are actuallytargeting sharks industrially.
And this has been going on for,for a long time now, 20, 30 years.
And it's been largely unregulated, right?

(36:45):
Yeah.
Um, there's no, in many, most places youcan take as many blue sharks as a boat can
go take as many blue sharks as they want.
There's no rules for it.
No.
Um, it's not like tuna and swordfish.
They're managed with quotas andseasons and gear and stuff like that.
Sharks just by catch, right?
So we, we can go take as many as we want.
And now we're sitting here in 2025.
Sharks have gone down by71% the past 50 years.

(37:09):
And, um, people arestarting to wake up to this.
Blue sharks are now on appendix two of Es.
And, um, there are debates aboutcan we fish sharks sustainably?
What does that look like?
Um, you know, how do we regulate it?
Should we regulate it?
That kind of thing.
So, um, you know, it'srich, it's a rich vein.
Um, and to add to that too, uh,you know, sharks are such a dynamic

(37:32):
species or type of species because.
You have a lot of different sharks.
We have, we've identified now I thinkwe've grown from 452, you know, over
1200 sal ranks, you know, looking atsharks, skates, rays, and, and in kymera.
But when you look at even like theblue shark, you know, some areas
they're, they're well managed in thatthey have quotas and that they're,

(37:54):
they're, look, you look at themand we know their population size.
Even there, we don'thave enough information.
We only have some information.
There's a lot of sharks, but wejust don't have any information
at all, and people are stillcatching them on a regular basis.
You know, we get most of ourinformation from the fishers who
are fishing them because they'rethe ones who are catching them.
Uh, I, I co-host another podcastcalled the Beyond Jaws podcast

(38:15):
with Dr. David Ebert, and he'sknown as the Lost Shark Guy.
He looks for a lot of these sharks whohaven't been seen in a long time, and
most of the time he finds them at the fishmarkets because that's where they go and
talking to other fishermen and, and we,if we don't have the information on those
species, how are we supposed to find them?
Or even, how are we supposed to managethe species that we can find because
we just, people are not looking at thistype of species, which makes even more

(38:36):
concerning when you're seeing, as youmentioned, over 5,000 institutions in
Brazil who are ordering shark meat on a,on a regular basis to feed it to their.
The, the people that they care for,whether it be students, whether it
be elderly, whether it be, uh, youknow, patients as in, in hospitals.
It's, it's a very difficult thing to do.
Uh, and if already looking at the,the, you know, degradation of, of shark

(39:00):
populations around the world, which,which is really, you know, one of the
things that I, one of the reasons why Iwant to have you on, you mentioned at the
beginning, most people know about sharkthinning, but, and, and the problems
that, that, that thinning is producing.
But a lot of times we ignore sharkmeat and just shark fishing in general.
And there are some, and you cansay, you may be able to argue, there
are some, um, populations of, ofspecies that are of shark that are

(39:25):
well-managed, but those are in very small.
Like those are in, uh,you know, very spotted.
Uh, and I know there's some in theus but even then there's arguments
that they're not, you know, aswell managed everybody things.
'cause never, it's never fully perfect.
Um, but when you're not managingthem and you're not looking at
their numbers and you're not seeinghow they're gonna do, and you're.
You're selling this meat as like,as like, it's nothing like, it's

(39:47):
like, it's like it's infinite.
We know it's not infinite, and itscares the hell outta me from a, a
conservation standpoint that we arenot, you know, monitoring the this
further or monitoring this more.
Um, now when you first wrote thisarticle, uh, it came in two parts, right?
Was that the, i, was that thefirst, was that, was that the, the

(40:07):
goal, was this gonna be two parts?
Yeah.
So the initial goal was just one story.
Okay.
One story about, yeah.
Brazilian governmentprocurements of shark meat.
Um, so, but then something else emerged.
So, um, as I'm going through these,these procurement portals, these

(40:28):
websites where the government agenciesare listing the, uh, the procurements
and just kind of combing through them,searching for cassan, Cassan, Cassan.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I noticed that, um.
In one state in Brazil, southernmoststate, uh, Rio Grand do, um, which
is on the border with Uruguay.
It's got a big fishing industry.

(40:49):
Um, eat a lot of seafood down there.
Um, I was seeing tenders for,um, something else called, um,
mmo, maybe it's pronounced Portuguese.
So that's, um, translates as angel fish.
Ah, angel fish.
Angel fish.
So I, you know, at first I didn'tthink much of it, but I started
to see it and I was like, whatis, what is this angel fish?

(41:09):
I mean, 'cause you knowthe aquarium fish, right?
Like the angel fish?
Yeah, yeah.
Like, do people, do people eat that?
There's a lot of different names.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, so it's like,well, no, it can't be that.
I mean, that's not, they're not, there'sno industry that's producing angel fish,
you know, for, for consumption likethis, uh, on an industrial scale, right.
It's just not done.
So angel fish, um, youknow, what could that be?

(41:32):
So in one of these tenders, eventhough what they were, what they
were asking for was angel fish.
Uh, there was a supportingdocument that made clear that angel
fish was actually angel Shark.
Um, so that was very interesting.
So, um, when you first saw, when youfirst saw like angel fish and then all

(41:53):
of a sudden you realize that it's, it'snot phish, it's like a type of shark.
What was your reaction to that?
At first I was like, it'sthis can't be asking for angel
shark 'cause they're in danger.
Right, right.
That would just seem I, in Brazil,like it's, it's illegal to, um, I mean,
you can't catch endangered species.
You can't catch angelshark, even if they're dead.

(42:15):
You have to throw it back.
Yep.
And you can't trade angel shark,um, unless there is an, there is
an exemption that you can trade anendangered species if it is important.
So, okay.
Maybe there's a, you know, okay,that's, maybe it could be legal, but
I mean, when I first saw this, I,I was kind of, I don't know, so I,
I had to ask a bunch of people, um.

(42:36):
And, um, but eventually it didbecome clear that no, this ano
is a reference to Angel Shark.
There was just a lot ofevidence that we found.
It's, it's, it's all it'sexplained in the article.
Um mm-hmm.
You know, one of the tenders, um,there was a supporting document that
said, made clear that Ano was actuallycas on Ho, which that is the official

(42:56):
trade name for Angel Shark in Brazil.
So the Ministry of Agriculture, um,you know, regulates the official
trade names for like, food in Brazil.
And so these species, these, thesethree species of angel shark that
are native to Brazil, they havelike official trade names and
it's always casal anal something.
Casal an ho something.
Yeah, I'm, I'm totally mangled different.

(43:18):
No, no, but I get it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, okay.
This is Casal Anjo, sothis is Angel Shark.
There's no doubt about it,at least in this tender.
Um, you know, so we dugaround a little bit.
We found, um, you know,there was a document, um.
I think it was some museum archive thatshowed Thato was a, a trade, a common
name for Angel Shark in Rio Grand.

(43:39):
Judo Sewell.
Um, there was a, there was anotherthing that we found that um, I think,
um, I'm gonna mangle this 'cause it'sfrom memory, but it was something
to, it was some government documentthat was kind of further indicating
that Aho was actually Angel Shark.
Okay.
Um, you know, and, and comp,it's being sold openly.
I mean, in, in restaurants, in markets inthis state, pat Ho, and sometimes it is,

(44:04):
um, and rarely it is sometimes it's calledCasa an ho, like on, on the label, on
the product and like a store or whatever.
So, um, you know, so thatkind of became clear.
Okay.
Ano is a reference to Angel Shark.
Um, that doesn't mean that whenthey're procuring Piao, what they're
getting is always Angel Shark.
I mean, that was somethingthat, you know, experts.
I interviewed said it's like,you know, the suppliers could

(44:27):
be supplying something else.
It could be a different kindof shark, it could be guitar,
fish, or something like that.
Even with cassan, therecould be endangered species.
Yep.
Getting into this supply chain as cassan.
Yeah.
We don't know.
We don't know because it's just cassan,you know, ca it might be blue shark,
which is legal, but it might be anotherspecies, which is not, I mean, unless
you have a DNA sampler right then andthere to, to, to like sample randomly

(44:50):
the meat, you'll really never know.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So that's, I mean, there's been a lotof studies, um, in the past several
years, uh, like genetic studies wherethey take some, a scientist will go
take some meat that's being sold atthe supermarket and they'll test to
the, they'll do this genetic test tosee what species it is, and quite often
Caan is like hammerhead sharks or.

(45:12):
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
So it's a common issue.
Um, but to see Angel Sharks being kindof like openly procured, like this was
very surprising, very, very surprising.
Um, you know, so either it's beingimported legally or it is being
illegal caught in Brazil and thenkind of longed to this supply chain.
Mm-hmm.
So, um, we don't know.
We didn't, it was kind of beyond the scopeof our investigation, but we learned from,

(45:36):
um, Brazil's, uh, environment Agency.
It's called Obama.
Um, Obama, you know, they, they are,they're trying to crack down on the
illegal angel shark trade, and they'veactually asked the environment ministry
to close that exemption that allowsimported endangered species to be
traded because it, it kind of createsan opportunity to launder this, um,

(45:56):
yeah, illegally caught BrazilianAngel shark into these supply chains.
Um, so, you know, it's, um, it's reallyhard to trace these supply chains,
um, because, and we don't know the, wedon't know the portion of it either.
Like, we don't know the proportion ofhow much Angel shark was coming in.
In this situation, right?
Because it could have been under theCassa name too, but we True dunno, right?

(46:18):
That's that's definitely true.
Yeah.
So the, the import data is not alwaysclear about that kind of stuff, right?
Uh, it's not really, it's ashark is coming in, it's not
usually not divided by species.
Um, yeah.
So it sounds like someone can do a, aPhD just on, on the, uh, translation
and identification of the supply chainstuff that's coming through, you know,

(46:42):
just imported into Brazil or probably anycountry where we don't know the actual
names because it's not as if they'reimporting by name of species or just
kind of like, it sounds like just a cat,like a, a random general category that
people are importing these sharks under.
And, and until we know different,we don't know if it's just all
blue sharks or how much is angel,shark or anything like that.

(47:03):
Right.
Yep.
Yep.
The trade data is really toughto work with for that reason.
I think every country does it differently.
Yeah.
Um, I'm not totally expert on,on all that trade data stuff, but
there's a project right now at,uh, Dalhousie University in Canada.
Yeah.
Dalhousie.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So they're trying to map out the globalshark meat trade and um, you know, they've

(47:23):
got their own methods for trying to Right.
Work through these inconsistenciesand the trade data.
Yeah.
Um, from country to countryand, you know, entity to entity.
So yeah, that'll be interestingwhen that comes out.
Yeah.
It'll little bit up thetransparency for sure.
I mean, that's something that'sneeded in all fisheries, especially
shark fisheries, where we just don'thave the information and, uh, being
able to have this, uh, is, is great.

(47:44):
But, uh, definitelysurprising in this case.
Um, now you did these first two articles.
So the first one was on the, on the,uh, I just, so the revelation of, of
the fact that these, these institutions,it's not, I kept saying schools, but it's
not only schools, hospitals, and, andeven jails to prisons as well, right?

(48:04):
Like the, the people were readingsharks, um, on a, on a regular basis.
Um, the second one was really identifyinglike how illegal angel shark captures were
being used also in these school lunches.
Um, there was a third one, uh, thatwas, that was, uh, published today
as of this recording August 26th.
Um, can you talk about what that was?

(48:25):
It was a bit of a response letterto like, it's kind of like an update
of, of what's been happening becauseof the first two articles, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So, uh, yeah, we just publishedthis piece, uh, an hour ago.
Uh, yeah, it's basically reaction story.
Great time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I was glad to get it out before,before coming on here, but, uh.
It's basically a reactions piece.

(48:46):
Um, I mean, there's been, there'sbeen some reaction in Brazil to the
investigation that we published.
Um, there's a, a member of the nauh, the National Parliament who,
um, he, he's actually introduceda bill a couple years ago to ban
federal procurements of shark meat.
Our investigation was more focusedon the state and municipal level.

(49:06):
Okay.
Which is, there's vastly more sharkmeat pro cameras at, at that level.
We, uh, seemingly right.
But, uh, so he, you know, he readthe story and he said he was gonna
call, call for a parliamentaryhearing to discuss findings.
Um, you know, some other governmentagencies responded, um, saying
they'd look into some of this stuff.
Um, you know, there's some industry,you know, commentary kind of pushing

(49:28):
back against, um, some of the pointsthat were raised in the article.
Um, you know, mainly to dowith the heavy metals aspect.
Um, so, you know, we covered that.
We covered the statements that they putout and, and what scientists are saying.
I think it's a really interesting debate.
Yeah.
Um, you know, about the heavymetals issue, you know, I'm not a
scientist, so, you know, I'm, I'm,I'm going to the scientists, to the

(49:51):
industry people Yeah, of course.
And trying to understand.
Um, but, um, you know, the articlethat we put out is, is talks
about arsenic is one of the onesthat appears in sharks sometimes.
Um, the first story that we put out talkeda bit about Mercury is another common one.
Um, so the industry, you know, willargue that, um, you know, these concerns

(50:12):
about heavy metals are overblown.
Um, yeah.
You know, shark meat is really healthybecause it has, you know, it's protein,
Omega-3 fatty acids, that kind of thing.
Um, you know, they'll say, they'llmake various arguments about, about
mercury and about arsenic, whichare recounting in the articles.
And, and we kind of go backand kind of present the debate.

(50:32):
Um, so, you know.
Um, I could get into some of thatstuff here if you want, um, nuts
and bolts of that, but that was,that's definitely, that's in the
article that we just published.
Um, there's also a Portugueseconservationist who she's quoted in
the story saying that there's a lotof Portuguese government shark meat
procurements, which I didn't know.

(50:53):
Um mm-hmm.
And, you know, there's a web, there'sa transparency portal in Portugal
where I guess you can go and you cansearch for, uh, shark meat procurement.
So maybe that's something we shouldfollow up on, or maybe, right.
If there's a Portuguese journalistout there who wants to, wants to write
about this, um, you know, we can,maybe we can work together or, or,
you know, you can just do a story.
I think, um, I think this is somethingthat's bigger than just Brazil.

(51:14):
Um, it's worth, it's worth asking.
Um, to what extent are thesegovernment purchases, uh, driving
the shark meat trade globally?
Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, it's, in a way it'slike government subsidy subsidizing,
uh, the shark meat trade.
Um, yeah.
And, you know, and, andyou know, it's cheap.
It's cheap meat.
Um, the fins are expensive, the meat.

(51:35):
Is cheap.
Um, and that's, I think, theother part of the big appeal.
The other big appeal besides thebone is, is, is the low price.
So, um, yeah.
How do you feed a mass amount ofpeople with the cheapest meat ever?
Yeah, exactly.
Doesn't mean it's the best meat,but it's the cheapest meat.
And if that works, that works for them.
Right?
Yeah.
You know, um, we talked to theformer mayor of a city in Sao

(51:55):
Pao state, um, who was involvedin some of these procurements.
He's actually the head of Obama now,which is, uh, which is interesting.
But when he was mayor in the 2010s,he signed off on some shark meat
procurements and not just sharkmeat, also ray meat, um, for schools.
Um, and I think maybe hospitals, shelters,I can't remember that particular city.
But, um, he said that, um, youknow, at the time he tried to push

(52:19):
back against it, you know, do wereally want to be serving shark?
But the, the nutritionists who droppedthe menus, um, you know, were basically
like, you know, you're gonna tellme how to do my job kind of thing.
Um.
So, you know, it's,it's, it's interesting.
So the way the system works is, um,it's government agencies in Brazil,
they employ nutritionists who, um, dropthe menus for food procurements, right?

(52:44):
Mm-hmm.
Basically design the procurements.
And so it all goes backto the nutritionists.
Um, and, um, there's thousands ofnutritionists in Brazil and, um, you
know, they don't know that that, that ina lot of cases, I mean, the ones we talked
to, I can't say for all of 'em, but itseems like at least the ones we talked to
seem to not know that Kessan was shark.

(53:04):
Um, and to know aboutthe heavy metals issues.
So, um, interesting.
I forgot what I was talking about fora sec. It was, uh, it was the mayor.
Yeah, the mayor.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I, I feel like it, it,it's, it's interesting when,
when all this develops, right?
You, you do the first two articles,you get all this, this response.
Did you expect this type of responsefrom, from the, like, like a

(53:27):
federal, you know, uh, a federalpolitician as well as industry?
Because that means it must make asplash that mean it, most people
must be reading this stuff, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, that's, that'salways what you wanna see, right?
As a journalist, you wanna, you wanna,you wanna know that it's being read
and, you know, so I, I don't know ifI ex, if I, if I was totally shocked

(53:47):
to, to, to see this kind of response.
I mean, I, I kind of knew going intothis, that this was a big issue and,
and, and just the scale of it, the factthat it's happening all over the country.
Um, I mean, before we put out this story,um, there's really nothing on government
procurements of shark meat anywhere.
I, I hadn't found any report, any article,any study anywhere that was part of.

(54:09):
When we're going into this, like, is thissomething we wanna spend a lot of time on?
Because it could take some time, but thatwas part of the calculus for us, right.
Um, so that, that kindof made it worth doing.
And so I wasn't totally shocked tosee, to see responses like that.
Um, you know, it's a little unfortunate,I think to see kind of maybe some
hostile responses from mm-hmm.
Some quarters of the industry.

(54:30):
Not totally surprising, right.
But, um, you know, you try to engage ingood faith, you try to, I interviewed,
you know, I interviewed people on thefishing side, on the trading side, on
the, um, you know, fishing to trading.
Right.
Um, people in like import export.
Um, so I feel like I've got a prettygood understanding of the issues,

(54:50):
of the arguments on both sides.
Um, you know, it's something wedefinitely wanna keep covering,
um, in Brazil and elsewhere.
Um, you know, and hopefully it,it continues to be, you know.
Relevant to, yeah.
The debate that people arehaving in these places.
I think, I mean, I think you'veidentified a lot, you know, in terms
of, of what needs to be further done.

(55:12):
I think we are looking at thetransparency of a supply chain.
You know, I, identifying thesecategories that things are being, uh,
are being imported to, but there'sno sort of manifesto on, on the,
like, which species are being used?
Is it all blue sharks?
Is it not blue sharks?
You know, a call for like, lookingafter the stock of where these,

(55:35):
you know, we don't even knowwhere these sharks are caught.
We probably know it's the Atlantic, but wedon't know where they're caught otherwise.
Um, it almost seems to be likea, you know, DNA test needs to
be done, uh, to find out the,the variety of different sharks.
If there's a variety of different sharks,uh, different shark species that are
being, that are being consumed on this.
And, and if so, are they being managed?

(55:56):
Are they not?
What's their status?
All this stuff.
We know there's angel shark that'sbeing used, and that's, you know,
that's, that's already endangered.
Um, so we're looking already atendangered species being, being, um,
being procured and, and being eaten.
And then there's also the safety aspectof, of the people who are consuming this.
Some of them don't have achoice, actually neither, none
of them really have a choice.

(56:16):
It's just offered as part of the thing.
And, and parents need to know aboutthis as well for schools, um, you
know, advocates for, for jails and,and, and looking after the elderly.
Like their, their kids need to make surethat the people who are eating this stuff.
Are gonna be safe, you know?
And, and, and, uh, and I know thereare studies out there that looking at
the effects of, you know, increasedarsenic and, and mercury in the

(56:39):
body is not, is not good, especiallyfrom, um, from consuming seafood.
Um, that's something thatneeds to be looked at.
So there seems to be a lot of,of things that need to go on.
And I know you've just postedthe article, the, the follow up
article, like the response article.
Uh, you mentioned that, you know,something that to look into is, is looking
into Portugal and, and their transparencyportal and, and what's in there.

(57:02):
Um, what would you think should the nelike the next step should be in developing
this story in, in Brazil to like, areyou, look, are you hoping that with the
publication union co-authors with thispublication, that there's gonna be some
change or it's going to at least start,spark a debate that looks at, you know,

(57:22):
whether the people of Brazil want this?
Yeah, so there's a fewways it could go in Brazil.
Um.
So we have this bill that's beenintroduced, uh, by this National
Parliament member that would banfederal procurements of shark meat.
So we'll see what happens with that.
Um, but shark meat procurementsare happening at the state level.

(57:45):
Mm-hmm.
And at the municipal level.
So Brazil has like 30, I think it's26 or 36 states, um, thousands,
like 5,000, 6,000 cities.
Um, so you know, that'ssomething that would have to
get addressed by these mm-hmm.
Different jurisdictions.
So it doesn't necessarily meanbanning shark meat procurements.

(58:06):
Um, for example, the, the state ofParana, um, they passed a rule that any
shark meat sold in the state has to beclearly labeled with the species name.
So you can't just sell it as casa Right.
In Parana, you have to sell it as a. Youknow, pre pka, if it's Blue Shark or, or

(58:31):
whatever it is, squat, it's angel Shark.
So, right.
Um, you know, that's a transparencymeasure that could at least, if you're
gonna sell it, at least enables theconsumer to, um, understand what it
is that they're buying and consuming.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so that's something that, youknow, a lot of people we interviewed

(58:52):
mentioned, um, as somethingthat could or should be done.
Um, um, um, um, yeah, soPower Now has done that.
I mean, some, I think this the, you know,a couple years ago there was a, the Sao
Pao city administration issued a tenderfor some huge amount of shark meat.

(59:15):
I think it was like 650 tons of sharkmeat for schools across the state.
That was actually, that actuallymade headlines at the time.
Um, there was some civil society,uh, pushback against that.
The NGOC Shepherd was, youknow, raising a fuss about that.
A lot of other, you know, concernedpeople were, were up in arms about it.
There was some media coverageand that resulted in the city

(59:38):
canceling the tender right.
In that instance.
So, um, you know, it does come to light ina city here or there, but, um, you know,
I thought it was important to producethis article because it shows that it's
not just one city here, one city there.
It's really a nationwide thing.
Yeah.
Um, so, you know, we, we publishedthe data along with the article.

(59:59):
There's a spreadsheet of thethousand tenders that we found.
Yeah.
That took a long time to put together.
The reason why we put the time intodoing that was so if any local media
in Brazil wanna follow this up,they can, you know, for writing for
their, their city newspaper or theirstate newspaper, they can do that.
And, you know, there's gonna be a lot oftenders out there that we didn't find.

(01:00:20):
This wasn't a comprehensive,we didn't identify every tender
that's ever been issued for sharky.
A thousand of 'em is, I mean, there'sgonna be a lot more than that.
So, um, local journalists couldfollow up, maybe find some more
tenders, um, if, if that's relevantto them and they wanna do that.
Um, but I think it's something that could,you know, there, there's more to be done.
Um, there's more to be reckoned with.

(01:00:40):
There's also, on the phishingside, a debate happening in Brazil
about whether like targeted blueshark fishing should be allowed.
Um, that's a whole nother side of it.
Yeah.
Um, and that's not just happening inBrazil, it's happening in other countries.
Yeah.
As well.
Yeah.
So that's also really interesting.
I, and, and, uh, I should say, and Iknow this is a feature article like

(01:01:03):
the, the original one, it, it's.
There's a lot of detail in this.
Um, even one, I think you did like a,a, a, like a a dot matrix kind of anal
like analysis or looking at like thesebar graphs with the each dot representing
one unique recipient on this thing.
It's really cool to like scroll through.
Um, so the article's really great.
I highly recommend everybody who'slistening to this to go read the article.

(01:01:26):
'cause like there's so much informationin this and, and we'll link to
all three so that people can get,uh, can, can be able to, to read
them all and go through them all.
I think it's, I think it'ssomething that's, that's.
Needed.
Um, and there's so many, it opens upso many doors to research, not only
from a a journalist perspective,but I think also from a conservation

(01:01:47):
and science perspective to reallyunderstand the shark meat market,
uh, in internationally, not just, notjust in Brazil, but internationally.
Uh, so, so Philip, I wanna thank youso much for, for coming on the, on
the show, uh, and, and sharing thiswith us, this important article.
Um, once I started to read in this, I waslike, this has to, that we, we have to

(01:02:08):
have Phil on the show to talk about this.
So I wanna thank you so much and I'dlove to have you back on, not only to
talk about this, but other articles thatyou've written, uh, related to the ocean.
Thanks so much.
It means a lot.
Uh, you know, I got get, got thatnice feedback and uh, really had
a good time talking with you.
And I'm, I'm, I'm happy to come on again.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you, Philip, for joiningus on today's episode of the How

(01:02:29):
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
It was so great to have you on.
What a story, something that wedon't realize even Philip mentioned.
You know, we know a lot about thinning.
We don't know a lot about how shark meatis being consumed in various countries,
how non-transparent the supply chain is.
When we look at sharks, you know, hementioned there's a specific topic or

(01:02:50):
name for shark meat that's coming in,but we don't know the actual species.
Those aren't identified.
We don't know if it's different species.
We don't know if it's one singlespecies and we don't know if there
are many more endangered speciesand they're just like angel sharks.
So there's a lot to be uncovered.
There's a lot of work to do to makesure that these papers, these documents
are more transparent, making surethat we understand what species is

(01:03:11):
being caught, what species is beingsold, is it allowed to be sold?
There are a lot of regulationsthat need to happen.
It seems like the federal government ison par with doing something about it.
However, the state or regionalgovernments as well as the local
governments and municipal governments.
Aren't really at that stage yet.
And that's where a lot of the purchasingis happening according to Philip.

(01:03:32):
And that is concerning.
It's a lot more to manage.
Whereas like if you have a federallaw that says that this is how
it's gonna be regulated, maybeit'll be easier to move down.
I don't know what the politicalsystem is like in Brazil.
I don't know how much the federallaws have influence on the state
and local levels, but you know,they always could have some level.
But it would be great to see some kindof regulation, some kind of transparency

(01:03:54):
in those regulations or demand fortransparency in those regulations.
Even requirement, not even demand arequirement for transparency in those
regulations to make sure that weknow what species are being caught.
That's the first thing, likeinformation is key, monitoring is key.
If we don't have that information, wecannot monitor, we cannot conserve.
And that's a big part of that.
As Philip mentioned, there's people at DelHousie University who are working on that.

(01:04:16):
There are people all over the world whoare working on it in different countries,
and it seems like there's a lot of workto do, a great chance for people to do a
PhD or a Master's degree on it or a masterproject on it because this is something
that is necessary and it's something thathasn't really been done in certain areas
before, and it's something that needs tobe done just so that we can understand

(01:04:37):
how these sharks are being consumed,how they're being shipped all over the
world, how they're being caught, wherethey're going, all that kind of stuff.
It's something that needs to be doneand I'm glad that this article came out.
I'm glad that we canlook at it in the future.
And I'm looking forwardto seeing what happens.
So thank you again to Phil to beable to come on the podcast and
talk about this, and thank you,the audience member for listening.

(01:04:58):
If you have any questions or comments,let us know in the YouTube comments below.
Or if you're listening to this on yourfavorite podcast app, you can go and
you want to comment or have a question.
You know, please let me know.
You can hit me up on Instagramat How to Protect the Ocean.
Just DM me, it's at HowTo Protect the Ocean.
Or you can go to speak upfor blue.com/contact and you
can just fill out the form.
It goes right to my email.

(01:05:19):
I'd love to hear from you.
But thank you so much for joiningme on today's episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host Angel and from the truenor strong and free, have a great day.
We'll talk to you next timeand happy conservation.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Shark Meat Fed To Students: Brazil’s Hidden School Lunch Scandal

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

All Episodes

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

Stuff You Should Know