| Abstract: |
English fish and chip shop customers have been unwittingly eating endangered shark that’s mislabelled as other species of fish, according to a new scientific report. Researchers at the University of Exeter used DNA barcoding, where DNA samples are checked against a species database, to trace the sale of threatened shark products in takeaways and fishmongers. The majority of samples were identified as spiny dogfish, part of the shark family that is critically endangered in the northeast Atlantic, where landings have been prohibited. The report nevertheless cited evidence of spiny dogfish being imported to the U.K. including from Canada, which exported 1,950 million tonnes to the EU by 2001. “ |
