BajaNomad

Shark Fins Across the Border

sancho - 12-24-2011 at 01:17 PM

Read a piece in the LA Times a couple days back,
a Mex National was found 'carrying', pedestrian I
assume, a couple bags of Shark Fins into the US
at San Ysidro. Customs says they go for as much
as $2000 a lb. Person was cited and crossing
papers revoked. I believe it is a new reg in Ca.
making posession of fins illegal, obvious that Mex
fisherman are not 'finning' sharks, but rather
using the entire shark, I would guess the 'smuggler'
was unaware of the reg

[Edited on 12-28-2011 by sancho]

DENNIS - 12-24-2011 at 01:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by sancho
Read a piece in the LA Times a couple days back,
a Mex National was found 'carrying', pedestrian I
assume, a couple bags of Shark Fins into the US
at San Ysidro. Customs says they go for as much
as $2000 a lb. Person was cited and crossing
papers revoked


If they went for that much, I doubt there would be a shark left in the water.
I know a little about Sharkfin Soup.
It was around fifty years ago when a buddy and myself were heading south in Baja and we had car trouble around GN.
Well...we didn't feel like getting our hands dirty so we sold the car and continued south with a Good Samaritan.
He worked for a specialty food company in San Diego and was on a regularly scheduled mission to various fish camps down Baja and we made a stop at a co-op in Santa Rosalilla that fished Shark only for the fins.
Inside a warehouse there were around a million shark fins, desicated to a hardness of fiberglass and one look at them explained why the fish agent had to drop in on them occasionally. Below the fin was a dried strip of meat from the shark's back and it was his job to tell them to knock it off, the deep cutting, as they were bought and sold by the kilo.

A shark fin is similar to a hand as it has a web of cartilege that resembles fingers. Between these fingers is a strip of meat that is scaraped off the cartilege and that's what these goofy Orientals see as so valuable.
I could imagine the meat being 2000 per pound, but not the entire fin as most of it is scrap.



.

[Edited on 12-24-2011 by DENNIS]

805gregg - 12-27-2011 at 07:38 PM

Shark fin soup is now illegal in Ca. Good.

Strange Tastes

MrBillM - 12-27-2011 at 11:41 PM

With Chicken-Noodle Soup so cheap (still only 60 cents on sale), WHY would anybody want to eat something else ?

I haven't for at least 40 years.

wessongroup - 12-28-2011 at 12:06 AM

Watch out ... ya might have just brought up Foster Farms ... :lol::lol::lol::lol:

Cardon Man - 12-28-2011 at 08:02 AM

When last I checked...my commercial fishing buddies were getting up to $1,500 pesos per kilo of quality fin. Also, prices vary depending on the species.