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

0:00 What if the fish on your child's school lunch tray was endangered? Shark loaded with toxic chemicals. How would you feel about that? Well, that's been the topic of article series from Mongabay News where they uncovered thousands of tons of shark meat purchases in Brazil's public institutions. That's schools, that's elderly care, facilities and prisons. Something that is concerning is the amount of institutions we're looking at over 5,900 institutions where they're serving shark meat. This is something that is very concerning because 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 you go into an aquarium and you look at angel fish, you're like, oh, okay.

0:42 Well, those are found on reefs and they're found in tropical areas, but we don't really know if they're endangered or not. Or there's some that are and some that 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 health perspective of it and you know, sharks are known to have elevated levels of mercury and arsenic. 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 why this is so problematic and why things need to change and what these articles have actually sparked in Brazil. It definitely sparked a debate and we're gonna hear about it from Philip Jacobson, who is one of the journalists who covered this article, and he's here to talk about the process, how it all came to be, what he discovered during that time, and what the articles have done in Brazil in sparking this debate on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

1:37 Let's start the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. On today's episode, we've got a special one for you. You know, normally I cover Mongabay news articles. I do that quite often. It's something that I really enjoy because 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 where you don't hear about oceans, about wildlife, about forests and so forth, and it's something that's really great. Now, I am not being sponsored by Monga Bay.

2:18 I literally just enjoy. Their articles, and I'm very honored to be able to have one of the journalists, Philip Jacobson, who was spearheaded this series of articles on the shark meat that's served in Brazilian public institutions. It really sparked a topic where he looked at the procurement announcements that were happening. They have to be public, they have to be transparent in Brazil, and he started going through them and started noticing specific patterns that were considered shark meat. You're gonna hear about that in the interview. How he discovered that and what he wanted and where that led him into revealing what was happening in these public institutions and how much shark meat is being consumed, and how non-transparent that part is, that procurement transparent, but not what sharks are being brought in, what sharks are being consumed, how they're being consumed and so forth.

3:03 So there's a lot of things that we're gonna go through in this article in Philip Jacobson, who's a journalist at Mongabay News, who's based in Thailand, is joining us to be able to talk about. So here is the interview with Philip. Talking about shark meat in public institutions in Brazil. Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after. Hey Philip, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Are you ready to talk about shark meat 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. Uh, this is something that, uh, I've been excited to have. 'cause first of all, we're gonna find out in just a sec, but you are one of the journalists that work at Monga Bay.

3:44 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, if anybody is on our newsletter, we see at least a one Monga Bay article pretty much five days a week. Uh, so it's always great to be able to have someone on in person. I think Eric Hoffner was the last one who was on here. Um, but it was, it was great to be able to have you on here. 'cause we're gonna be talking about a specific story, actually, a series now, a three part story that has a, an interesting result from the first two parts. 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.

4:25 Really, it's, it's, it's, uh, kids are having shark meat for their lunches in Brazil, which is pretty much like, I feel like, you know, from North America. That sounds really out there, but there are kids programs that have fish in it because it's such a good protein source. Um, but this one is with shark meat in 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 through that journalistic process, which I'm really excited about 'cause I'm very interested 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? Uh, yeah. Thanks a lot Andrew. Um, so I'm Philip Jacobson. Um, I'm an American journalist living in, currently based in Thailand, Chiang, my Thailand.

5:09 And uh, I'm an editor and a reporter for Mongabay. Mongabay is a, it's an environmental news site. Um, I first joined in 2015. 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 120 people, 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, news outlet, so we get a lot of, we got 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.

5:56 Um, and so, yeah, so I, I embarked on this project. Uh, it was part of a, uh, a fellowship with the Pulitzer Center. Okay. Which is a big funder in 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 like a, a small problem, you know? And we know this is an international problem. It's some, it's something worldwide. From, from you as a journalist. Have you Al, had you always wanted to be an environmental journalist or even a journalist at all? Yeah, I mean, I came to it through, uh, through journalism. Um, okay. Not necessarily environmental journalism.

6:37 Um, so I grew up in Chicago, um, LA and Chicago. And, uh, in, in my high school newspaper, I worked on the high school newspaper. I was editor in chief in my high school newspaper as a senior. It's like, is how, you know, a lot of journalists get their start, I guess. Yeah. Um, college, I, you know, I majored in journalism and then, uh, after graduation, I, uh, I was looking for, uh, looking for a job and, uh, I wanted to live abroad. Mm-hmm. So, uh, I found a job as a copy editor at the Jakarta Globe. Okay. Which is, uh, yeah, it's an English language paper in Jakarta, Indonesia. So, uh, I went there, had that job for a year, and then, you know, I was there as a copy editor.

7:21 You're reading the, uh, the news every day. And, um, it's a great, uh, it's a great introduction to a country. As a journalist. You start to get a sense of the current events and the issues. And over the course of that year, I started to, you know, I started to think if I could, if I could learn the language and kind of get outta the capitol, um, you know, I could, there, there's so many stories to report and that's what I did. Um, spent a couple years freelancing. Um, had a part-time job with, uh, tempo Magazine, which is an Indonesian magazine. They do a lot of investigative work and, uh, at tempo I started doing some environmental stories. Um, Indonesia, it's got, you know, a ton of rainforest. Mm-hmm. A ton of biodiversity. They've also got a lot of industries that are, you know, causing deforestation and biodiversity loss.

8:05 Things like the palm oil industry, pulp and paper industry, um, that sort of thing. So I covered that a bit of tempo. And then job at Mongabay opened up in 2015 and, uh, applied for it, ended up getting it, and yeah. Uh, ever since I've, uh, I've really 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 story and, um, I'm excited to talk about it. It feels like it's such a unique experience to be able to do journalism abroad. You know, growing up in North America, like I live in Canada, you, you grew up in, in, in the States, there's this protection that is afforded to journalists. You know, if you work within North America, let's say, um, we've seen a lot of journalists, like, I think a lot of the journalists who cover war areas.

8:54 Obviously there's danger in that and, and we've seen it, uh, recently in, in, in different areas around the world where journalists are, are getting hurt. And I know for con from a conservationist standpoint, scientists and conservationists who are doing work abroad 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 necessarily the protections that would be afforded to them in the, in Canada or the US if they work on specific, uh, areas. What's it like to work. As a journalist that's, that's originally from North America, to go over to places like Indonesia and Thailand to do the work that you were doing. 'cause some of these stories that are, that are posted on Monga Bay are not necessarily like, oh, look at this country.

9:39 They're doing a great job at fisheries, or they're doing a great job. Some of them are very investigative journalists, the journalism pieces, 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, in that 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? Yeah, so it's an interesting question. Um, you know, manga Bay operates in a lot of different contexts, so it's kind of different depending on the country. But, um, yeah, as you've, as you've, as you've noted, um, in some countries it's, it's certainly harder to operate than others.

10:20 Um. If the dynamic can shift a bit, depending on if you're a foreign journalist or a national in that particular country, um, you know, foreigners can be deported. Mm-hmm. Um, but locals can be, you know, messed around with in, uh, in other ways. So, um, you know, sometimes you do 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 never been threatened personally. Right. But, um, I did, um, I did spend a few days in prison once, uh, in Indonesia. So, um Oh, wow. Yeah. That's, uh, that back in 2020. That's been interesting. It was, it was very interesting. Most interesting experience I never wanna have again.

11:00 Yes, yes, yes. Let's stay outta there. But it was very interesting and, um, you know, um, it's, um. You can often work with local journalists, um, in a, uh, in, in a, in an effective way, a foreigner and a local mm-hmm. Um, can often be a potent combination. Um, you know, I came to Southeast Asia working for an English language newspaper. That is a, uh, it's, it's a way that 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 in Myanmar, um, Indonesia, Thailand. So it's, it's a bit, some of those have folded in the past couple years, um, which is sad.

11:45 Mm-hmm. Because a lot of the people I know who've, um, gone on to, to pretty impressive careers in, um, foreign correspondence got their start at places like the Cambodia Daily or the PanAm Pen Post, or the Jakarta Globe. Mm-hmm. Um, but, you know, certainly, uh, my friends who worked at the Cambodian publications who would often be a foreigner 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, in this 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 a new experience for me in Brazil. But, um, uh, I think it's, uh, you know, possible to operate there.

12:27 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 be able 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. Before we get into this particular story, uh, something I've always been interested in is how. Do you develop these types of stories like on Monga Bay? Because there's something different about Monga Bay than your, your other news reports. I mean, one is very, it's all environmentally focused, right? It's so, it's whether it's, uh, forest like RA rainforests or, um, you know, uh, you know, shark meat or ocean focused or wildlife focused.

13:14 It's, it's pretty much has an environmental, 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 which are hard to come by, uh, these days. And, but they're deep, they're not just like. Oh, I'm gonna think of a topic and I'm gonna just write, you know, to be honest, I, I do that sometimes. Like, I'll read a Manga Bay news article and I'll be like, oh, I'm gonna use that as a basis to talk about another particular subject. But you guys, when you put a, a story together, this is not a story. You just think of that day and then write it. This is something, sometimes it could be months, if not years, uh, weeks, months, years in the making to, to try and make this what goes into a story that's published on Manga Bay.

13:58 You've been there for quite some time over 10 years. What, what goes into that, that type of story? Sure. Um, well, we publish, um, we publish in different formats. So we publish, uh, short news, we publish articles, we publish longer features, and we publish investigations, videos, podcasts. Um, but what goes into it is, I mean, just like any, you know, newspaper that's worth our salt is, uh, you know, good old fashioned beat reporting, right? So we have reporters in these places. Um, who follow these issues for a period of time. Um, get to know the sources involved and, um, develop a certain amount of knowledge about the, about the issue.

14:40 And, um, once you do that for a certain amount of time, um, you know, you start to see where the stories are, right? You start to, you know, a, a, a story that might not be published in the form of a, you know, an academic paper or a, or a press release or an NGO report. I mean, those things can be good to cover and we do cover those. But, uh, it's when you start to follow an issue for, um, for an extended period of time, um, and, and, and, and know the, the stakeholders, the people involved, that you start to see where the stories lie, um, that haven't been covered, that are, uh, you know, right to be told. So, um, you know, that's what we do at Manga Bay. Um, for example, um, on the Southeast Asia desk 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 freelancers who 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 our Latin America Desk, or our Oceans 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 with others and having that geographic sort of spatial extent is, is, is pretty key.

16:06 'cause we don't hear a lot of stories within these areas. Um, and I think that's what makes it quite unique, um, which is great. Let's, let's get into to this story in particular. Um, you know, this is, you know, we're looking at fish for, for, uh, for lunches, for kids in Brazil. Um, you know, it's really shark meat. Uh, there's a lot that goes in with shark 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 their brain growth and, and a lot of growth. That, and we know that there's a lot of stuff that, that is in, uh, shark meat that is not very good if you eat it too much. And so every day, that's sounds like a lot.

16:48 So why don't you just talk a little bit about, um, how this story really began, uh, right from the beginning and 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 with the, uh, Pulitzer Center. And the, the thrust of that proposal was to, uh, investigate the global shark trade. So, uh, one of the topics that I was interested in looking at was the rise of the shark meat industry. Mm-hmm. Shark meat. So I think a lot of people know about shark fins. Yes. Shark fin soup in Asia, you know, the practice of shark thinning.

17:31 Um, I'm sure your, your listeners are familiar, but, um Yep. We've covered it extensively. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, you, you, you catch the shark, you cut off the fins, you throw the rest of the body back. So, um, yeah, I wanted to look at the shark meat industry, the shark meat trade, and um, Brazil is a top consumer and importer of shark meat, so it made sense to look at Brazil. Um, this is something, the fact that they're a top consumer and importer that's well documented. Um, you know, people who follow this issue know that. But, um, as I started to approach various conservationists, government people, et cetera, um, to talk about Brazil's shark me trade and learn more about it, um, you know, I started to, to hear about, um, government procurements.

18:20 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 had interviewed somebody who mentioned it. Um, so it's not something that was completely hidden, but it was, it was never, it was never expounded on in any depth or length. It was always just kind of a, an offhanded mention in the middle of some study, in the middle of some articles. So, um, you know, I thought that that could be an interesting angle, right? I mean, if, if they're serving it in schools or hospitals and that kind of thing, but how do you, how do you show that this is happening? Mm-hmm. How do you approach this journalistically? Um, so as I, as I talked to, I talked to a few people who mentioned to me that Brazil has a transparency law.

19:02 Brazil has a transparency law, which requires government agencies to publish procurement data, right? So if you're, if you're the education department and you know, city X, you know, you've gotta publish. All the calls for tender that you, that you issue. Right. If you're right, if you say, I want to buy, you know, a thousand pounds of chicken for, uh, the local hospital that 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, you could 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 had all that time start to think, well, you know, this is, do a year for this 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 premise of this investigation. So, um, you know, I, I had done a story like that before in Indonesia where you, um. You know, you go on a bunch of government websites and you build a database of, in that case it was court cases. Mm-hmm. That was a story about, uh, traditional farmers and on the island of Borneo getting criminally prosecuted for 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 database of those, uh, those, those prosecutions.

20:26 Uh, just, but, um, so this was, in a way it was similar. We thought, okay, let's, we can, 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 reasons why it's not so straightforward. One of which is that, um, there's no central, it's not like there's one website you can go on to find all the procurements in Brazil. Mm-hmm. Um, every state has its own. Transparency portal. Every city has its own transparency 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.

21:10 Start there. Um, and so one of the authors of this story, one of the bylines on this story is, uh, my colleague King, he's the data editor at the Pulitzer Center. Um, so he, you know, I worked very closely with him to, uh, we tried to figure out a way to scrape these websites, right? Right. So he used his magical coding abilities to, uh, to build these bots that 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 Sao Paulo Rio de Janeiro. And, um, what was the other one? Um, I think it was Parina. Um, and I'm, of course I'm mangling the pronunciations of some of those, but, um, so that's what we did.

21:53 I mean, um, that's what we did and there was a lot of manual labor that was involved in there, you know, having to verify what the robots gave us. And, um, we also went on a lot of city 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 detail about, about that process. But, um, that was kind of the, the meat of the investigation. And then we, um, of course once we identified all these shark meat tenders, um, we, we sought to contact the, the agencies that were buying the shark meat, um, the public institutions that were receiving the shark meat, uh, the companies that were supplying the shark meat, um, all that kind of thing. Um, and you know, one of the reasons, uh, why it wasn't so straightforward is that shark meat in Brazil, um, it's not actually.

22:42 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. So it's just that, that ca you know, so, okay. So, so it's called, it's sold under the name Caan. And, and, um, because it's a suffix, like it, it becomes really hard to search these portals for Caan because you search cassan. It actually brings up anything with the word that, that has that in it. Right. It's, it's not a very, these aren't very sophisticated search platforms like Google. You can't ask, you generally can't ask them to.

23:23 So that, that, that presented a whole host 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 we approach the data gathering exercise. Now, further along into the story, do the children and, and rightfully the parents 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 is shark for the most part in Brazil. Right. Um, there's surveys that show that most people who buy cassan don't know that it's actually shark. Right. Um, and this is a common thing in, in fish.

24:06 Yeah. Right? Yeah. Um, so it's not widely known. Um, you know, these packages don't have labels that say like, this is shark. The word for shark and Portuguese is uba, UBA, brown. Um, and that's typically not on the labels. There's typically not a species name or anything like that, so people don't know. Um, and so one of the people who was, uh. Featured in the article is, is a woman who, uh, her name is Solan Ami. And she, um, she's a, uh, an educator in a city that's in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area. And, um, she's also president of the Municipal School Feeding Council, which kind of has a role in, um, you know, the, the meal program for schools in that city.

24:51 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, she started to look into it. And, and it was only when she went home and did some research that she realized that Cassan was shark. And she starts to, to read, you know, 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 apex predators that bioaccumulate. Right. These substances and their, and their tissue. So, and she became concerned and so she, over the past few years has been trying to get the municipal education department in this, in this city to remove casa from, uh, the school meal program, replace it with a different fish.

25:40 Um, you know, they want to be serving fish. Uh, there's an, there's a program in Brazil to get people to eat more fish. It's, it's seen as healthy and, you know, like the source of fish protein and all that. Yeah. Um, but she wanted 'em to stop serving Casa. Um, and to this day, she's been unable to do so. Um, you know, one thing that we, that we heard a lot from the, um, government officials that we talked to, um, the, the, the government nutritionists that draw up these menus, um, which inform these procurements is that shark meat is, is appealing because it, it doesn't have bones. Hmm. So, uh, yeah. So this boneless flesh is, uh, it's, it's appealing to people. In places like Brazil, um, who are quite often concerned with, uh, choking on bones, they're afraid that a kid's gonna choke on a bone, parents are gonna sue the school.

26:26 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, I haven't really heard that in the us. I grew up eating fish. You know, bones was never like 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 fish consumption isn't such a normal thing. People are, people are afraid of choking on bones. So that's a big reason for the appeal of serving sharks to kids, especially kids. Um, but as we know, heavy metals like mercury and arsenic can, can affect, uh, and they can affect anybody if you, if you eat enough of it. Yep. Um, according to the science. But, um, you know, kids, especially like the developing brains they can affect, um, those substances can affect developing brains even, even more and more quickly than, you know, somebody who eats it.

27:11 X amount of times per week over the course of a lifetime. So, um, yeah, I think the famous case, I think the famous case out of that was, uh, an actor Jeremy Vin, who was in Entourage and many other, uh, shows and, and movies where I, I, I think he was like Scavo 'cause he just ate sushi every day for like decades. And when he went in to get his blood 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 almost like a, like a, i I, I don't know the term, but it was a, it was a blood transfusion that where they had to replace a lot of his blood because there was so much mercury and he was in the hospital for quite some time. Um, and, and so that's like one of the famous things and that's eating it every day.

27:54 Obviously that's an extreme 'cause not everybody eats fish every day, but if you're having, if you're a child and you're eating it five times a day and you're developing, like what are the age groups of the children that are eating this, this meat? It's as young as it gets, man. It's um. Because the homelessness is part of the appeal. Yeah. Even younger. Younger, like early childhood education. Yeah. And yes, primary school, like kindergarten, first grade. Right. Um, you know, in our, in our, in our investigation, we, that was a question that we asked, like how, you know, I think we identified, um, 5,900 institutions, like individual schools or hospitals that were listed as potential recipients of sharp meat in these tenders that we identified.

28:38 Most of them were schools. Yeah. And we found at least a thousand, more than a thousand, um, early childhood schools. 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 shark meat for a, a shelter for disabled kids. Kids with intellectual disabilities, they, they saw it as, um, as, you know, as good for those, those kids because maybe they have a harder time chewing. So the boneless meat was, um, was seen as appealing for those kids just 'cause it was boneless meat at this point.

29:22 Yeah. Like, that's major difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so, you know, it's, it's very widely adopted in Brazil. I mean, it's, you know, it's not just restaurants, it's not just supermarkets. And I, you know, I walked around, I was 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 almost all 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 commonly, very commonly served. It's interesting 'cause Sao Paulo's, they have a lot of vegetarian restaurants. It's known for having like amazing vegan vegetarian food, but it's also, I suppose, known for having a lot of shark meat on offers.

30:05 So. Interesting. I wonder if that's the case. Like if, if there are people who are mostly vegetarian but will take protein, a lot of the times it's, it's some sort of seafood or fish, right? Yeah. Yeah. That I've seen anecdotally. I don't know if that's like widely known, 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, they still get the healthy, they get, they get the, the good proteins and the fatty acids and, and so forth. Uh, and, and the, the minerals and stuff. But I maybe that's, I wonder if that's a reason why as well. It's so popular there. Yeah. I wonder, you know, I don't know. I don't know where this term cassan comes from even, um, yeah. Why, why that took hold.

30:46 Um, you know, I've heard various things, 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 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, people like the government is putting it up as procurement people are buying this. A lot of people know they're buying sharks. Uh, the kids may not know and the parents may not know they're eating sharks. But why is this, uh, let's, let's talk about like the, the issues like from a a public health perspective, 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 government agencies in a country like Brazil?

31:35 Um, so there's really two sides of it. Um, one side is the public health side, which we touched on, can talk about that some more. Um, you know, the presence of heavy metals in these, in these fish. Um, the other side is sustainability, right? So sharks are, generally speaking, are declining across the world. You know, there was a study that that showed that shark abundance has declined by like 71%. Over the past 50 years. So, you know, sharks are being overfished, sharks are in trouble. Um, and, um, you know, shark meat is, um, is a growing industry. Mm-hmm. And that is driving the overfishing of sharks.

32:19 So when you identify kind of this hidden driver of the shark meat industry in the form of widespread government procurements in, you know, one of the biggest countries in the world, which also by the way could be happening in other countries, other countries, governments, you know, I've heard could be procuring shark meat. Maybe not on the same scale as Brazil, but I've heard Portugal, I've heard some other places as well. Um, you know, that is, um, you know, an issue worth considering. Um, now look, I'm not gonna tell anybody, you know, you can never, ever eat shark, right? Mm-hmm. You know, people have been eating sharks since probably the beginning of human history. Right. Um, you know, we humans eat a lot of things. Um, you know, I'm from, I live for eight years in Indonesia. There's a place in Indonesia.

33:00 Um, in the northern part of the island of Solei where they're known to eat just about anything. I think the, the saying there is if it, uh, if it, if it crawls, swims, flies, or walks, you know, we eat it. So, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna 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 happened is, um, there's been a shift from this traditional shark meat consumption, right? Like, you know Yep. Tradition. The villages here and there, indigenous peoples here and there to what we have today, which is, which is this big industrial scale fishing of sharks and consumption of shark meat. So, um, you know, to the extent where you have hundreds of companies in Brazil that are involved in the distribution of shark meat, um, which we show in our investigation, I think we identified more somewhere between 200 and 250 companies that were supplying government agencies.

33:55 Um. You know, that, that, that we, those are only the tenders that we, that we compiled. So, um, yeah. You know, this has become a massive global industry. Shark meat, I think is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year according to the WWF study published in I think 2021. Um, so it's big business. Um, it's a massive industry and, um, you know, I think at the very least, um, you know what a lot of people will say is that there should, there should at the very least be clear labeling on these products, right? Yeah. So some of the nutritionists who put 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 Brazilian nutritionist school, and they didn't know about the sustainability issues. It was all news to them. So, um, I think at the very least, we should be making informed decisions about. These kinds of, these kinds of foods. Um, you know, maybe there is a way to sustainably fish shark and, and, you know, harvest their meat and, and serve their meat in public institutions. But, um, I think a prerequisite for that should certainly be, um, you know, clear labeling, um, at least, at least knowing what we're dealing with. Um, and that, by the way, is an issue in shark fishing more broadly. I mean, the data's not very good for some of these species. Like it's hard to don't really know the status of some of these species that we're fishing.

35:16 Um, and you know, the blue shark is the species that is the most 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, the most commonly traded species. Um, you know, it's, um, the industry will say that, you know, the industry will argue that it's possible to sustainably fish the blue shark. Um. Some conservationists will counter that, you know, the data on blue sharks isn't, that, isn't that good? We don't really know how, how they're doing. You know, we don't, we don't maybe have 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 the precautionary right approach. Um, so that's a debate that's happening right now in, you know, in the regional fisheries management organizations, the RFMOs, yeah. In, in national governments, national, um, settings like Brazil. I mean, sharks are really, I think at a crossroads right now globally in Brazil in a number of other countries. Spain, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and the RFMOs. You know, people are just, I think starting to realize that, that these big shark fishing industries exist where boats are not only catching sharks as bycatch, but are actually targeting sharks industrially. And this has been going on for, for a long time now, 20, 30 years.

36:43 And it's been largely unregulated, right? Yeah. Um, there's no, in many, most places you can 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 and seasons 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 by 71% the past 50 years. And, um, people are starting to wake up to this. Blue sharks are now on appendix two of Es. And, um, there are debates about can we fish sharks sustainably? What does that look like? Um, you know, how do we regulate it?

37:23 Should we regulate it? That kind of thing. So, um, you know, it's rich, it's a rich vein. Um, and to add to that too, uh, you know, sharks are such a dynamic species or type of species because. You have a lot of different sharks. We have, we've identified now I think we've grown from 452, you know, over 1200 sal ranks, you know, looking at sharks, skates, rays, and, and in kymera. But when you look at even like the blue shark, you know, some areas they're, they're well managed in that they have quotas and that they're, they're, look, you look at them and we know their population size. Even there, we don't have enough information. We only have some information. There's a lot of sharks, but we just don't have any information at all, and people are still catching them on a regular basis.

38:07 You know, we get most of our information from the fishers who are fishing them because they're the ones who are catching them. Uh, I, I co-host another podcast called the Beyond Jaws podcast with Dr. David Ebert, and he's known as the Lost Shark Guy. He looks for a lot of these sharks who haven't been seen in a long time, and most of the time he finds them at the fish markets 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 manage the species that we can find because we just, people are not looking at this type of species, which makes even more concerning when you're seeing, as you mentioned, 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, you know, patients as in, in hospitals.

38:53 It's, it's a very difficult thing to do. Uh, and if already looking at the, the, you know, degradation of, of shark populations around the world, which, which is really, you know, one of the things that I, one of the reasons why I want to have you on, you mentioned at the beginning, most people know about shark thinning, but, and, and the problems that, that, that thinning is producing. But a lot of times we ignore shark meat and just shark fishing in general. And there are some, and you can say, you may be able to argue, there are some, um, populations of, of species that are of shark that are 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 the us but even then there's arguments that they're not, you know, as well managed everybody things.

39:35 'cause never, it's never fully perfect. Um, but when you're not managing them and you're not looking at their numbers and you're not seeing how they're gonna do, and you're. You're selling this meat as like, as like, it's nothing like, it's like, it's like it's infinite. We know it's not infinite, and it scares the hell outta me from a, a conservation standpoint that we are not, you know, monitoring the this further or monitoring this more. Um, now when you first wrote this article, uh, it came in two parts, right? Was that the, i, was that the first, was that, was that the, the goal, was this gonna be two parts? Yeah. So the initial goal was just one story. Okay. One story about, yeah.

40:16 Brazilian government procurements of shark meat. Um, so, but then something else emerged. So, um, as I'm going through these, these procurement portals, these websites where the government agencies are 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, southernmost state, uh, Rio Grand do, um, which is on the border with Uruguay. It's got a big fishing industry. 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.

40:58 So that's, um, translates as angel fish. Ah, angel fish. Angel fish. So I, you know, at first I didn't think much of it, but I started to see it and I was like, what is, what is this angel fish? I mean, 'cause you know the 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's no industry that's producing angel fish, you know, for, for consumption like this, uh, on an industrial scale, right. It's just not done. So angel fish, um, you know, what could that be? So in one of these tenders, even though what they were, what they were asking for was angel fish. Uh, there was a supporting document that made clear that angel fish was actually angel Shark.

41:45 Um, so that was very interesting. So, um, when you first saw, when you first saw like angel fish and then all of a sudden you realize that it's, it's not phish, it's like a type of shark. What was your reaction to that? At first I was like, it's this 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 angel shark, even if they're dead. 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 an endangered species if it is important.

42:26 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. And, um, but eventually it did become clear that no, this ano is a reference to Angel Shark. There was just a lot of evidence that we found. It's, it's, it's all it's explained 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 actually cas on Ho, which that is the official 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, these three species of angel shark that are native to Brazil, they have like official trade names and it's always casal anal something.

43:15 Casal an ho something. Yeah, I'm, I'm totally mangled different. No, no, but I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. This is Casal Anjo, so this is Angel Shark. There's no doubt about it, at least in this tender. Um, you know, so we dug around a little bit. We found, um, you know, there was a document, um. I think it was some museum archive that showed Thato was a, a trade, a common name for Angel Shark in Rio Grand. Judo Sewell. Um, there was a, there was another thing that we found that um, I think, um, I'm gonna mangle this 'cause it's from memory, but it was something to, it was some government document that was kind of further indicating that Aho was actually Angel Shark. Okay.

43:55 Um, you know, and, and comp, it's being sold openly. I mean, in, in restaurants, in markets in this state, pat Ho, and sometimes it is, um, and rarely it is sometimes it's called Casa an ho, like on, on the label, on the product and like a store or whatever. So, um, you know, so that kind of became clear. Okay. Ano is a reference to Angel Shark. Um, that doesn't mean that when they're procuring Piao, what they're getting is always Angel Shark. I mean, that was something that, you know, experts. I interviewed said it's like, you know, the suppliers could be supplying something else. It could be a different kind of shark, it could be guitar, fish, or something like that. Even with cassan, there could be endangered species.

44:35 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 another species, which is not, I mean, unless you have a DNA sampler right then and there to, to, to like sample randomly the meat, you'll really never know. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So that's, I mean, there's been a lot of studies, um, in the past several years, uh, like genetic studies where they take some, a scientist will go take some meat that's being sold at the supermarket and they'll test to the, they'll do this genetic test to see what species it is, and quite often Caan is like hammerhead sharks or. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So it's a common issue.

45:15 Um, but to see Angel Sharks being kind of like openly procured, like this was very surprising, very, very surprising. Um, you know, so either it's being imported legally or it is being illegal caught in Brazil and then kind of longed to this supply chain. Mm-hmm. So, um, we don't know. We didn't, it was kind of beyond the scope of our investigation, but we learned from, 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've actually asked the environment ministry to close that exemption that allows imported endangered species to be traded because it, it kind of creates an opportunity to launder this, um, yeah, illegally caught Brazilian Angel shark into these supply chains.

45:59 Um, so, you know, it's, um, it's really hard to trace these supply chains, um, because, and we don't know the, we don't know the portion of it either. Like, we don't know the proportion of how much Angel shark was coming in. In this situation, right? Because it could have been under the Cassa name too, but we True dunno, right? That's that's definitely true. Yeah. So the, the import data is not always clear about that kind of stuff, right? Uh, it's not really, it's a shark is coming in, it's not usually not divided by species. Um, yeah. So it sounds like someone can do a, a PhD just on, on the, uh, translation and identification of the supply chain stuff that's coming through, you know, just imported into Brazil or probably any country where we don't know the actual names because it's not as if they're importing 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.

46:57 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. Right. Yep. Yep. The trade data is really tough to 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 global shark meat trade and um, you know, they've got their own methods for trying to Right. Work through these inconsistencies and the trade data. Yeah. Um, from country to country and, you know, entity to entity. So yeah, that'll be interesting when that comes out. Yeah. It'll little bit up the transparency for sure. I mean, that's something that's needed in all fisheries, especially shark fisheries, where we just don't have the information and, uh, being able to have this, uh, is, is great.

47:44 But, uh, definitely surprising 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, and even jails to prisons as well, right? Like the, the people were reading sharks, um, on a, on a regular basis. Um, the second one was really identifying like how illegal angel shark captures were being used also in these school lunches. Um, there was a third one, uh, that was, 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 letter to like, it's kind of like an update of, of what's been happening because of the first two articles, right? Yeah, exactly. So, uh, yeah, we just published this 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. Um, I mean, there's been, there's been some reaction in Brazil to the investigation that we published. Um, there's a, a member of the na uh, the National Parliament who, um, he, he's actually introduced a bill a couple years ago to ban federal procurements of shark meat. Our investigation was more focused on the state and municipal level.

49:06 Okay. Which is, there's vastly more shark meat pro cameras at, at that level. We, uh, seemingly right. But, uh, so he, you know, he read the story and he said he was gonna call, call for a parliamentary hearing to discuss findings. Um, you know, some other government agencies responded, um, saying they'd look into some of this stuff. Um, you know, there's some industry, you know, commentary kind of pushing back against, um, some of the points that were raised in the article. Um, you know, mainly to do with the heavy metals aspect. Um, so, you know, we covered that. We covered the statements that they put out and, and what scientists are saying. I think it's a really interesting debate. Yeah. Um, you know, about the heavy metals issue, you know, I'm not a scientist, so, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm going to the scientists, to the industry people Yeah, of course.

49:52 And trying to understand. Um, but, um, you know, the article that we put out is, is talks about arsenic is one of the ones that appears in sharks sometimes. Um, the first story that we put out talked a bit about Mercury is another common one. Um, so the industry, you know, will argue that, um, you know, these concerns about heavy metals are overblown. Um, yeah. You know, shark meat is really healthy because it has, you know, it's protein, Omega-3 fatty acids, that kind of thing. Um, you know, they'll say, they'll make various arguments about, about mercury and about arsenic, which are recounting in the articles. And, and we kind of go back and kind of present the debate.

50:32 Um, so, you know. Um, I could get into some of that stuff 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 Portuguese conservationist who she's quoted in the story saying that there's a lot of Portuguese government shark meat procurements, which I didn't know. Um mm-hmm. And, you know, there's a web, there's a transparency portal in Portugal where I guess you can go and you can search for, uh, shark meat procurement. So maybe that's something we should follow up on, or maybe, right. If there's a Portuguese journalist out 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 something that's bigger than just Brazil.

51:14 Um, it's worth, it's worth asking. Um, to what extent are these government purchases, uh, driving the shark meat trade globally? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, it's, in a way it's like government subsidy subsidizing, uh, the shark meat trade. Um, yeah. And, you know, and, and you know, it's cheap. It's cheap meat. Um, the fins are expensive, the meat. Is cheap. Um, and that's, I think, the other part of the big appeal. The other big appeal besides the bone is, is, is the low price. So, um, yeah. How do you feed a mass amount of people 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 the former mayor of a city in Sao Pao state, um, who was involved in some of these procurements.

51:58 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 shark meat, 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, you know, at the time he tried to push back against it, you know, do we really want to be serving shark? But the, the nutritionists who dropped the menus, um, you know, were basically like, you know, you're gonna tell me 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, drop the menus for food procurements, right?

52:44 Mm-hmm. Basically design the procurements. And so it all goes back to the nutritionists. Um, and, um, there's thousands of nutritionists in Brazil and, um, you know, they don't know that that, that in a lot of cases, I mean, the ones we talked to, I can't say for all of 'em, but it seems like at least the ones we talked to seem to not know that Kessan was shark. Um, and to know about the heavy metals issues. So, um, interesting. I forgot what I was talking about for a 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 response from, from the, like, like a federal, you know, uh, a federal politician as well as industry?

53:33 Because that means it must make a splash that mean it, most people must be reading this stuff, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, that's, that's always 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 if I ex, if I, if I was totally shocked to, to, to see this kind of response. I mean, I, I kind of knew going into this, that this was a big issue and, and, and just the scale of it, the fact that 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. When we're going into this, like, is this something we wanna spend a lot of time on? Because it could take some time, but that was part of the calculus for us, right.

54:15 Um, so that, that kind of made it worth doing. And so I wasn't totally shocked to see, 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. Not totally surprising, right. But, um, you know, you try to engage in good faith, you try to, I interviewed, you know, I interviewed people on the fishing 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 pretty good understanding of the issues, of the arguments on both sides. Um, you know, it's something we definitely wanna keep covering, um, in Brazil and elsewhere.

54:57 Um, you know, and hopefully it, it continues to be, you know. Relevant to, yeah. The debate that people are having in these places. I think, I mean, I think you've identified a lot, you know, in terms of, of what needs to be further done. I think we are looking at the transparency of a supply chain. You know, I, identifying these categories that things are being, uh, are being imported to, but there's no 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, looking after the stock of where these, you know, we don't even know where these sharks are caught.

55:38 We probably know it's the Atlantic, but we don't know where they're caught otherwise. Um, it almost seems to be like a, 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? Are they not? What's their status? All this stuff. We know there's angel shark that's being used, and that's, you know, that's, that's already endangered. Um, so we're looking already at endangered species being, being, um, being procured and, and being eaten. And then there's also the safety aspect of, of the people who are consuming this. Some of them don't have a choice, actually neither, none of them really have a choice. It's just offered as part of the thing.

56:19 And, and parents need to know about this 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 sure that the people who are eating this stuff. Are gonna be safe, you know? And, and, and, uh, and I know there are studies out there that looking at the effects of, you know, increased arsenic and, and mercury in the body is not, is not good, especially from, um, from consuming seafood. Um, that's something that needs 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 posted the 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 transparency portal and, and what's in there.

57:02 Um, what would you think should the ne like the next step should be in developing this story in, in Brazil to like, are you, look, are you hoping that with the publication union co-authors with this publication, that there's gonna be some change or it's going to at least start, spark a debate that looks at, you know, whether the people of Brazil want this? Yeah, so there's a few ways it could go in Brazil. Um. So we have this bill that's been introduced, uh, by this National Parliament member that would ban federal procurements of shark meat. So we'll see what happens with that. Um, but shark meat procurements are happening at the state level.

57:45 Mm-hmm. And at the municipal level. So Brazil has like 30, I think it's 26 or 36 states, um, thousands, like 5,000, 6,000 cities. Um, so you know, that's something that would have to get addressed by these mm-hmm. Different jurisdictions. So it doesn't necessarily mean banning shark meat procurements. Um, for example, the, the state of Parana, um, they passed a rule that any shark meat sold in the state has to be clearly labeled with the species name. So you can't just sell it as casa Right.

58:25 In Parana, you have to sell it as a. You know, pre pka, if it's Blue Shark or, or whatever it is, squat, it's angel Shark. So, right. Um, you know, that's a transparency measure that could at least, if you're gonna sell it, at least enables the consumer to, um, understand what it is that they're buying and consuming. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, so that's something that, you know, a lot of people we interviewed mentioned, um, as something that could or should be done. Um, um, um, um, yeah, so Power 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 tender for some huge amount of shark meat.

59:15 I think it was like 650 tons of shark meat for schools across the state. That was actually, that actually made headlines at the time. Um, there was some civil society, uh, pushback against that. The NGOC Shepherd was, you know, raising a fuss about that. A lot of other, you know, concerned people were, were up in arms about it. There was some media coverage and that resulted in the city canceling the tender right. In that instance. So, um, you know, it does come to light in a city here or there, but, um, you know, I thought it was important to produce this article because it shows that it's not just one city here, one city there. It's really a nationwide thing. Yeah.

59:55 Um, so, you know, we, we published the data along with the article. There's a spreadsheet of the thousand tenders that we found. Yeah. That took a long time to put together. The reason why we put the time into doing 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 their state newspaper, they can do that. And, you know, there's gonna be a lot of tenders out there that we didn't find. 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's gonna be a lot more than that. So, um, local journalists could follow up, maybe find some more tenders, um, if, if that's relevant to them and they wanna do that. Um, but I think it's something that could, you know, there, there's more to be done.

1:00:39 Um, there's more to be reckoned with. There's also, on the phishing side, a debate happening in Brazil about whether like targeted blue shark fishing should be allowed. Um, that's a whole nother side of it. Yeah. Um, and that's not just happening in Brazil, it's happening in other countries. Yeah. As well. Yeah. So that's also really interesting. I, and, and, uh, I should say, and I know this is a feature article like 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 these bar graphs with the each dot representing one unique recipient on this thing. It's really cool to like scroll through.

1:01:21 Um, so the article's really great. I highly recommend everybody who's listening to this to go read the article. 'cause like there's so much information in 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's something that's, that's. Needed. Um, and there's so many, it opens up so many doors to research, not only from a a journalist perspective, but I think also from a conservation and science perspective to really understand the shark meat market, uh, in internationally, not just, not just in Brazil, but internationally. Uh, so, so Philip, I wanna thank you so much for, for coming on the, on the show, uh, and, and sharing this with us, this important article.

1:02:04 Um, once I started to read in this, I was like, this has to, that we, we have to have Phil on the show to talk about this. So I wanna thank you so much and I'd love to have you back on, not only to talk about this, but other articles that you've written, uh, related to the ocean. Thanks so much. It means a lot. Uh, you know, I got get, got that nice 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 joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. It was so great to have you on. What a story, something that we don't realize even Philip mentioned. You know, we know a lot about thinning. We don't know a lot about how shark meat is being consumed in various countries, how non-transparent the supply chain is.

1:02:46 When we look at sharks, you know, he mentioned there's a specific topic or 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 single species and we don't know if there are many more endangered species and they're just like angel sharks. So there's a lot to be uncovered. There's a lot of work to do to make sure that these papers, these documents are more transparent, making sure that we understand what species is being caught, what species is being sold, is it allowed to be sold? There are a lot of regulations that need to happen. It seems like the federal government is on par with doing something about it. However, the state or regional governments as well as the local governments and municipal governments.

1:03:27 Aren't really at that stage yet. And that's where a lot of the purchasing is happening according to Philip. And that is concerning. It's a lot more to manage. Whereas like if you have a federal law that says that this is how it's gonna be regulated, maybe it'll be easier to move down. I don't know what the political system is like in Brazil. I don't know how much the federal laws 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 kind of regulation, some kind of transparency in those regulations or demand for transparency in those regulations. Even requirement, not even demand a requirement for transparency in those regulations to make sure that we know what species are being caught. That's the first thing, like information is key, monitoring is key.

1:04:07 If we don't have that information, we cannot monitor, we cannot conserve. And that's a big part of that. As Philip mentioned, there's people at Del Housie University who are working on that. There are people all over the world who are working on it in different countries, and it seems like there's a lot of work to do, a great chance for people to do a PhD or a Master's degree on it or a master project on it because this is something that is necessary and it's something that hasn't really been done in certain areas before, and it's something that needs to be done just so that we can understand how these sharks are being consumed, how they're being shipped all over the world, how they're being caught, where they're going, all that kind of stuff. It's something that needs to be done and I'm glad that this article came out. I'm glad that we can look at it in the future.

1:04:50 And I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. So thank you again to Phil to be able to come on the podcast and talk about this, and thank you, the audience member for listening. If you have any questions or comments, let us know in the YouTube comments below. Or if you're listening to this on your favorite 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 Instagram at How to Protect the Ocean. Just DM me, it's at How To Protect the Ocean. Or you can go to speak up for blue.com/contact and you can just fill out the form. It goes right to my email. I'd love to hear from you. But thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host Angel and from the true nor strong and free, have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.