Why is endangered shark ending up on Swiss plates? 

Tossing away dogfish shark is not an option when its meat has a ready market in Europe. AP Photo/Stephan Savoia

New regulations have restricted the import of shark meat but it still finds its way on to Swiss plates due to mislabelling, poor identification skills and the clandestine trade.

Sopa de cação is a Portuguese delicacy believed to originate in the Alentejo region. It is a rich garlic and coriander broth thickened with flour and seasoned with vinegar, ground paprika and bay leaves. A simple dish that can easily be put together with ingredients sourced from any Swiss supermarket or grocery store except perhaps for one exotic item: slices of dogfish shark, a small bottom-dwelling shark that lives along the northern Pacific and Atlantic coasts. It is classified as endangered globally and its trade is regulated, which means Switzerland should not be importing it.  

But Swissinfo found frozen fillets of dogfish or common smooth-hound shark (Mustelus mustelus) in a grocery store in Geneva that caters to Switzerland’s large Portuguese diaspora.  

Sopa de cacao – traditional Portuguese specialty made with slices of dogfish shark. Dreamstime.com

Shark meat has long been present on grocery shop shelves of European countries, including Switzerland – sometimes unknowingly to the consumer. But this could end soon. With many sharks on endangered lists, the EU is looking to regulate the trade in shark meat, which is also loaded with heavy metals. In Switzerland, a parliamentary initiative is in the pipeline to ban shark and ray meat in Switzerland.  

“You can get one kilo for less than CHF15 ($18.60) in Switzerland. Some people are used to eating shark meat and they will look for it, but others accidentally buy shark meat without knowing it, because it’s not often very transparent on the label or mixed in processed seafood,” says Laurianne Trimoulla of Gallifrey, a Swiss venture philanthropy foundation. 

Shark meat trade in Europe

Shark meat on European plates is a relatively new phenomenon and took off with Chinese demand for shark fin, a culinary delicacy, from 2000 onwards. This meant fishermen would chop the fin off the shark and then throw the rest of the carcass overboard, decimating the global shark population. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an average of 13.4% of global shark landings reported from 2000-2008 came from four European countries: Spain, France, Portugal and the UK. 

In 2003, to protect the shark population in European waters, the European Union required fishing vessels to bring any sharks they caught – bycatch or intentional – with their fins intact back to port. This meant each shark took up more space in the boat, resulting in fewer sharks caught per trip. 

But what to do with the shark carcasses once the valuable fins were extracted? Shark meat was exported but at a very low price: $0.10/kg (CHF0.08/kg) between 2012-2019, according to WWF. This led to the development of a shark meat market in Europe with countries like Italy paying as much as $4/kg. During this period Europe accounted for 22% of global shark and ray meat trade, worth $2.6 billion, which was more than the global trade in shark fins – $1.5 billion at the time.  

As a result, certain shark species were regionally decimated by fishing fleets. For example, Norway’s catch of the porbeagle shark declined by 99% between 1936 and 2005; the Northeast Atlantic population is classified as critically endangered. The spurdog or spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias), used in fish and chips in the UK and as a smoked meat delicacyExternal link in Germany called Schillerlocken, was so overfished that a fishing ban was introduced in 2011 in European Union waters and only lifted in 2023.  

Misleading labels 

Shark meat is regularly mislabelled in Switzerland, misleading consumers.  

“Switzerland imported 609 tonnes of shark and ray – the elasmobranch family – products in the last 35 years and still does today. But shark meat is often sold under misleading names, like dogfish, spurdog, rock salmon, huss, nursehound, smooth-hound,” Trimoulla says. 

Swissinfo found frozen fillets of dog fish or smooth-hound mislabelled as sea dog (chien de mer in French) in the shop. According to the official naming list of the Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, the correct name of the smooth-hound shark in French is émissole lisse, indicating that the Swiss importer of the shark meat from Portugal labelled the shipment incorrectly. Other names used on labels in Switzerland include Schillerlocke in German. 

Most Europeans are not aware of their countries’ role in the global shark meat trade. A survey of 900 Italians in the Milan area in 2024 showed that 65% of respondents did not believe that shark meat is legally sold in Italy. The majority identified China and Japan as the main consumer of shark meat, with only 4% aware of Italy’s significant role in the shark meat trade.  

While only about 8% of respondents said they had purchased shark meat, over a quarter said they had consumed shark species unknowingly under another name such as smeriglio (porbeagle) spinarolo (spiny dogfish), palombo (common smooth-hound), mako (shortfin mako), or gattuccio (small-spotted catshark). This suggests that seafood lovers are not aware they are consuming sharks unless the label explicitly mentions the word shark in their language.  

DNA analysis of shark meat sold in the USExternal link and BrazilExternal link has identified endangered species which were not indicated on the labels. 

Impact on health

Being at the top of the food chain means that sharks get to eat pretty much anything they want in the ocean. This comes with additional risks to shark meat consumers. The accumulation of heavy metals like mercury up the food chain is one such drawback.  

Trimoulla collected shark meat samples from Swiss stores and sent samples to a laboratory in Germany to be tested for heavy metals. In total, 44 samples of blue shark and seven of tope shark meat, bought in various supermarkets and restaurants in Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK and Spain, were analysed for methylmercury. A third of the samples showed alarming rates (1mg/kg to 4.4mg/kg), exceeding the WHO, EU and Swiss maximum authorised level in shark species of 1mg/kg. 

Swissinfo contacted Europêche, the association of national organisations of fishing enterprises in the European Union, with the test results. The association responded that consuming fish predators, including sharks, is not dangerous for health. While accepting that predators contain more mercury than other species because they are at the top of the food chain, Europêche’s position is that mercury levels in sharks have been stable for 50 years. 

“What concerns us about mercury bioaccumulation – a well-known topic, subject of scientific research and regulations – is the growing pressure, driven not by science but by misinformation and fake news, which is pushing consumers away from seafood, with harmful consequences for diet and health,” said Anne-France Mattlet of Europêche.  

According to Mattlet, the European fishing fleet applies the regulations on mercury thresholds rigorously. This includes that mercury checks are conducted at various stages of the supply chain – upon landing for fishing vessels, after processing, and before commercialisation. Any batch of fish exceeding the permitted mercury levels is either blocked or returned, and fishing vessels are fully involved in ensuring compliance. 

“The rules for controlling European fisheries are extremely strict, and we welcome that. What we are asking for is that they are applied to all fleets worldwide,” she said. 

However, despite these measures, the scientific committee of the European Food Safety Authority recommends cautionExternal link when consuming high-risk species like shark. 

“When consuming species with a high methylmercury content, only a few numbers of servings (maximum one or two) can be eaten before reaching the TWI [tolerable weekly intake], which may be attained before the DRV [dietary reference value],” the committee said.  

Citizens’ initiative  

To address health concerns and the dwindling shark population, three years ago NGOs in Europe collected more than a million signatures needed for a European citizens’ initiative called “Stop finning – Stop the trade”. A European citizens’ initiative requires the European Commission to propose legal action in areas where the Commission has the power to do so, provided it is backed by at least one million citizens from at least seven EU countries. In response to the citizens’ initiative, the Commission opened a public consultation on the issue last year and received almost 3,500 responses.  

In 2022, 60 shark species (mostly requiem and hammerhead sharks) were added to Appendix II of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. WWF estimates that this measure has meant 90% of all internationally traded species of sharks and rays can now be traded only if their stocks are not endangered as a result, compared to only 20% before the new rules.  

These measures have had a drastic effect on Swiss imports of shark meat: imports of dogfish and other sharks fell from 1,676kg in 2023 to just 4kg in 2024; the frozen equivalent fell from 1,358kg to 11kg. But mislabelling could mean the numbers are under-reported.  

Despite the stricter regulations, Swissinfo’s visit to a grocery shop in Geneva seemed to indicate that shark meat, some of which is sold illegally, was still getting through customs undetected. The shop owner told Swissinfo that customs had confiscated five boxes (about 50kg) of shark meat worth about CHF1,500 in June. Nevertheless, the shop was still able to source and sell common smooth-hound shark meat, a fact the owner was aware of. 

A ban in Switzerland?

A parliamentary motionExternal link submitted in 2013 to ban the import of shark fins was rejected on the grounds that the Alpine nation was not an importer. This may have been true at the time, but shark fins have been imported since.  

Thus Trimoulla wants the import of all shark products banned in Switzerland to remove any loopholes or clandestine trade, and she is campaigningExternal link for the Swiss parliament to legislate. 

“Last year Austria banned the import of all shark products – without any economical negative impact – and the government was absolutely favourable to this. So it’s possible, and it sends a huge message to the rest of the world,” she says. 

The Gallifrey Foundation has convinced Green Party parliamentarian Delphine Klopfenstein Broggini to launch a parliamentary initiative seeking to ban the import of shark and ray products into Switzerland. This could open the door to new legislation.  

“We are increasingly better informed on these issues, with a solid and reliable scientific basis, and the question of public health could be decisive,” says Klopfenstein Broggini. 

Edited Virginie Mangin/ts