Impacts on whales, sharks and fish - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 118

from between 2s 6d to 10s per imperial pound in China, shark meat obtained £25
per ton and shark leather was used to manufacture shoes, handbags and wallets.
In 1932, the increasing prospects of the Queensland shark fishery were
discussed by J. D. W. Dick (1932, p6), the Queensland Chief Inspector of
Fisheries, who stated:
From time to time inquiries are received by the [QDHM] as to sources of shark
skins, shark oil, and fins, and there is evidently a growing demand for these
products. Some action to test the commercial possibilities of shark products
has been taken during the year by a company established at Wynnum, which
has also shown a considerable amount of enterprise in the manufacture of
edible fish products.
Dick (1935, p1091) later acknowledged that interest in the shark fishery
remained high. In 1937, he reported that commercial shark fishing occurred
near Bowen, and he stated that those operations were 'in charge of a well-
known exponent of that type of fishing, who has had experience in dealing with
shark products' (Dick, 1937, p1404). That individual was probably Norman W.
Caldwell, a renowned commercial shark fisher employed by Queensland Marine
Industries Ltd of Brisbane; the prospectus of that company stated that Caldwell
had fished commercially for sharks for many years (Queensland Marine Industries
Ltd, 1932, p6).
In the 1930s, sharks were exploited commercially for an increasing range
of products. Shark-fin was used to manufacture soups; shark oil was used as a
medicine, in the production of cooking oil, in the tanning industry and as a
lubricant on ship-ramps; shark meal was used in the manufacture of agricultural
fertilisers; and shark leather was sold for the curios trade. Like many other marine
resources, the sharks of the Great Barrier Reef were considered to be 'practically
inexhaustible'. The operation carried out by Queensland Marine Industries Ltd
was based on an average weekly catch of twelve tons of sharks, although a large
by-catch of other species also resulted from that operation, and by 1933 another
company, Ford Sherrington Ltd, had purchased shark leather from Queensland
Marine Industries Ltd for over eighteen months; the leather was produced from
the skins of tiger, whaler and nurse sharks (Queensland Marine Industries Ltd,
1932, pp7-8, 11; Goddard, 1933, p221; Roughley, 1936, p252). In one book,
entitled Fangs of the Sea , Caldwell (1936) referred to the export of hundreds
of tons of shark fins annually to China and Malaysia; he also mentioned the
manufacture of leather products from shark hides and the production of oil from
the shark livers. Another book by Caldwell (1938), Titans of the Barrier Reef ,
contained additional descriptions of the capture of sharks in the Whitsunday
Group.
During the 1930s, the fishing of sharks for sport, described by Lamond (1936),
had commenced; that activity occurred alongside the commercial shark fishery.
Lamond's (1936) account contained evidence of the destruction of tiger and