Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fisheries Threatening Shark Conservation in African Waters Revealed from High Levels of Shark Mislabelling in Ghana

Abstract

Mislabelling of fish and fish products has attracted much attention over the last decades, following public awareness of the practice of substituting high-value with low-value fish in markets, restaurants, and processed seafood. In some cases, mislabelling includes illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, contributing to overexploit substitute species that are undetectable when sold under wrong names. This is the first study of DNA barcoding to assess the level of mislabelling in fish marketed in Ghana, focusing on endangered shark species. Genetic identification was obtained from 650 base pair sequences within the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene. All except one of 17 shark fillets analysed were wrongly labelled as compared with none of 28 samples of small commercial pelagic fish and 14 commercial shark samples purchased in Europe. Several substitute shark species in Ghana are endangered (Carcharhinus signatus and Isurus oxyrinchus) and critically endangered (Squatina aculeata). Shark products commercialized in Europe (n = 14) did not reveal mislabelling, thus specific shark mislabelling cannot be generalized. Although based on a limited number of samples and fish markets, the results that reveal trade of endangered sharks in Ghana markets encourage Ghanaian authorities to improve controls to enforce conservation measures.

Shark Fishing in Ghana: What We Ought to Know

“…In terms of numerical abundance of species the shark (Prionace glauca) was the most dominant species within the studied area. Similarly [12] stated that out of the seven (7) species identified, P. glauca accounted for the majority of the catch which conforms to the findings from the current study. Depending on the fisheries, areas, and seasons, the blue shark catches can be very significant in the overall catch and some specific cases can account for more than 50% of the total fish catch and around 85-90% of the total elasmobranch catch [27].…”

“…The number of species identified in the current study was in variance with other studies. Previous studies by [3,12,21] were similar to that reported in other works. Based on the aforementioned studies findings from the current study were similar to that reported in other works.…”

“…In Ghana, shark fishing activities are not regulated mainly because the species are caught as bycatch, and the meat is mostly used as bait for higher commercial species such as tuna, anchovies, and mackerels, as today, shark products can reach expensive prices in Ghanaian markets [3,12]. In Ghana, studies on sharks' distribution, abundance and species composition include the study by on 'Fishing for survival in the Western region of Ghana, [12] studies on 'Detection of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in sharks using barcoding in the Greater Region of Ghana. Another study was carried out by [3] on' Species composition, seasonality, and biological characteristics of Western Ghana's elasmobranch fishery.…”

Traceability adoption in dry fish supply chain SMEs in India: exploring awareness, benefits, drivers and barriers

“…The illegal harvesting of seafood and the mislabelling of dry fish products have become more prominent in recent years [10,11]. Typically, seafood products change hands 6 to 10 times before reaching the consumer.…”

Two Fish in a Pod. Mislabelling on Board Threatens Sustainability in Mixed Fisheries

“…Ardura et al, 2010). It could be also applied to those cases of generic labelling that allows for more than one species to be sold under an umbrella term (Garcia-Vazquez et al, 2011;Cawthorn et al, 2018;Agyeman et al, 2021).…”