the and that's it from me and then the same sort of close up is next looking at the trade in shock and maintenance. and you have an office in berlin from me and the whole news team hand. thank you very much for the we are all set. we are watching close the the to bring you the story behind the new, the will on about. i'm biased information for free might say, due to me in today, many of the world sharks b, c's are in danger of extinction due to over fishing every year. 100000000 of the

animals are killed for using cosmetics, animal feed. and this is like shark fin soup in europe. it's big business types are expensive. the cold of a c, a marine biologist uses a hidden camera to uncover the truth behind the trade. unsettling site. it's an over expectation of nature and then at the it's 4 30 am in vigo. a major phishing port on the spanish atlantic coast is home to one of your, of the largest fish markets. the premises is off limits to the public, but a 100 meters away. our team is fitting marine biologist lucas miller. with a hidden camera. ready, ready? the market halls are guarded fine array of fences, surveillance cameras,

port police, and security officials. all designed to keep an authorized people out ruler is going to try to sneak in. it's the only way he can document the quantities of shark that are being sold here. on in, in part 2000, the queen and portugal had the world's biggest shock fishing fleet song operating in the atlantic and other oceans the state. because this is one of the world's biggest chart trade. how do i know that goes on? sucks that so that we make contact with the local industry insider who wants to remain anonymous. he's scoping out the area to let lou customer not know what to watch out for. meanwhile, beulah and reporter, po, niga track which boats have entered the port that sometimes shift. these are 3 fishing boats that arrived yesterday and when by dean, by those 2 are what we call long liners on each side. they catch tuna sort of tension on sharpener of ships. there's boons of hi site. so that means they could

well adjust, unloaded sharks high up because i'm selling certain types of shark is still legal throughout the you. but increasingly politicians and experts are questioning the trade. that's one reason why many and vigo are wary of the media that's i'll see if it's over exploitation of nature and then up to, if we take these fish out of the ocean, well enough to strong and tighten marie and have a times come some names while i run this old sea on sister has been to years researching sharks and their role in marine ecosystems. he dives with blue sharks, mekaux sharks, and tiger sharks and various parts of the world without a cage to protect him. he studies their behavior and collects data on population and distribution. higher the sharks have been a lifelong passion for me. 100 plus an obsession on the lines. at the same time. it's important to keep things in perspective and to be objective perspective and a half of succession for what a data. so this was a, by some itself,

i can't let my personal feelings get in the way when it comes to evaluating an entire industry. the lots of people here in be go, rely on for their livelihood. and again, seem to see from the medicines, young people, the 30 minutes later, our informant is back warehouse one security. we only have a few hours before the goods are sold and taken away. the camera on. yeah, i'm ready. ready with sun. so you guys later vision wants to find out how many sharks are sold here. we were told that another tv crew found no shark meat when they filmed at the market. there was also no significant shock cash on sale during the visit last year. by then e u commissioner for environment, oceans and fisheries. virginia is think of issues, but was not just

a coincidence that has no trouble in passing through the entrance gate. down there is a car belonging to the port police, but he keeps going walking purposefully past the 1st large building, the just passing the hall where the small fish species are so familiar enough. thanks to our informant. he knows that the larger fish are sold in the hall at the end of this walkway. he gets a few suspicious looks from port employees. finally, he reaches the sales floor with an area about the size of 2 football pitches. inside traders are inspecting goods. getting caught, filming here would be awkward to say the least at the back of the hall. the not finds the sharks several tons of stacked on at least 15 pallets

this google, excuse me, as the are those blue sharks that fits into data? yeah. phase and big ones too, or just juveniles are just small ones. there are quotas in place for blue sharks caught in the atlantic limit of around $58000.00 tons per year. the european fisheries control agency carries out random inspections to monitor compliance. nobody actually knows exactly how many blue sharks there are. but marine biologist lucas miller, is alarmed by the number of dead fish here around 4 tons worth. he takes notes pretending to be a busy traitor, been to avoid attracting attention. he leaves the markets as a fair film, some juveniles, and saw that it was quite a lot of babies. sharks and districts on such i could tell the numbers are quite

high too. it's an unsettling sight. i was about to then back at the hotel. the biologist and reporter watched the footage in a shop. candice, it's shocking to see these little sharks that i basically just been born on is less than a year old. asked me of. and here they are, the fish market. most of them what have been causing the nursery habitats getting us doing the front of the international union for conservation of nature classifies blue sharks as near threatened. for that reason, the numbers that can be caught and sold are subject to ever greater restrictions of the point. now whether the quote as will stabilize populations is debatable high. and on this, before people even started studying these animals, we'd already designated almost all the large truck populations in the atlantic studio. sharks play a vital role in our oceans. these apex predators suit at the top of the complex

interlinked food chain. they keep the ecosystem balanced. also by eating c creatures that are sick or weak. overfishing sharks would take them out of what's called the food lab, upsetting the balance between predator and tray. in the long term, it would also endanger the very stocks on which the fishing industry depends. that's required to use the credit parts of a sharp science course of the fins approaching it. and so the fins get cut off and shipped to asia. and especially when they're used for shocks and soup high fish flossing, super, as it's a traditional dish and that comes with a lot of promises about long life and not getting sick. s. goals, the 1st place you must, yvonne along the beach cards, does mondays make congress yet not mine is of these days. so now lu stock shows up a lot in animal feed to this i'm time seemingly against mixed into approaching off to best on there are a lot of companies in vigo that sell shark meat and fins. we called and rode to

several traders to ask for an interview. my name is ken ega. i am a journalist from germany, but nobody was available at short notice. in an online video, the company bank in march shows how things are frozen and exported to asia by the sackful. the video shows how employees process the product in accordance with requirements, meticulously documenting each step. the reason opens on this as most read here in europe, should see it as a good thing that all the people working in the supply chain, their funding seem to be complying with the laws. based on what we've seen from the facilities was that's a, that's really positive. and that's this was, it shows that these women and men who are working to feed their families aren't doing anything illegal, not coming to you from your internet and is getting us because that's, but the real conversation we need to have is about whether the laws are adequate to

gazette city or the concert one person who doesn't think the law goes far enough is neil's cuba. he's an h r manager and passionate diver who has lobby to get the issue onto the european commissions agenda. he 1st started looking into the european chart trade several years ago and was concerned by what he found the most the have to do unit supply. so most toffee i should market were always complaining, but in fact we have the one that supplying the shock fins and i just didn't get that. was it under my coffee? my god, by glucose petition, stop spinning calls on your a to band sales of shark fins. he thinks that the sale of things was banned. trading and shocked meat would also lose its appeal. he presented the european commission with over a 1000000 signatures, as well as the fins of some dead sharks. he says brussels is now looking into the potential effects of

a band on the finish. i have my doubts because we've seen what's happened with all the years. citizens initiatives, there was one cold ends at the cage gauge is against the factory farming pace. h d, you are paying commission promise to end the practice in a you and even made legally binding promises. but it's disappeared from the commission's implementation agenda. comments on the partial for the residents, a v go fishing is a key source of income. we come to a cafe by the harbor to talk to some of the people who work on the fishing boats. journalists are viewed with suspicion around here. so we start by introducing ourselves with out our cameras, running to fishermen agreed to an interview. sharif and cna are from sierra leone and set a goal, respectively. they show us photos of their work. that sort fish and that one's blue shock. yeah. so just to go just double click the

wedding side and found out the highest speed, but the difficult shot more than $200.00 or 500 feet and does a colleagues got hurt because of soc is very high very, very, very high. 24 hours what most, sometimes some people die on accident. maybe the cable cuts hits you anybody if you want to but to see not to respect this event despite the dangers, shareef is happy to have found work in spain. it allows him to help support his

family of see want because the only thing we got the money to be honest, right? that's the money for a family. the company i've been is and both as they call it very much, it's a very nice company. maybe sometimes you get some 3000 a month as well to see if they give you 2500. so ship to give you 4000 and the fisherman very, very well. 5 30 am the next day. marine biologist lucas miller. he's another under covered visit to the fish market to gather more information. today he finds 5 tons of shark meat on display. willow wants to see with his own eyes, exactly how the meat is sold and at what price the

key begins to mingle with the traitors. the auctioneer goes from pallet to pallet with a megaphone surrounded by prospective buyers. he counts down from higher to lower prices until one of the dealers snaps up the goods. the complete shark is sold for 2 year owes $88.00 per kilo. in recent years, the average export price for a kilowatt shark fin has been 16 year rose within 5 times as much the law has seen enough to draw some conclusions. this to me is a lights says it's really sad to see the intelligent predators sold for such a little money escaped finding a stock. some states in the us like florida has completely outlaw the trade in sharks, insightful, some complex stuff. tom does that. so this would be your opinion as one of the

major cent exporters that still haven't taken that step. also for an export to be done, you're gonna splitting on this. you can most of our next stop isn't over housing. in western germany, we've come to the large scale planet ocean exhibition to meet activists that easily get claim at o'clock. she spent years diving with the world's largest sharks, as well as working to protect the animals. she founded the environmental organization a last motion. among her concerns is the global trade in shark fins. she's even provided the exhibition with some fins that turned up in germany. it's a clicking cycle in 2018. we were told that 3000 kilos of fins had arrived at frankfurt airport on their way from mexico to hong kong, next of that 400 kilos warrant identifiable, and seem to come from protected species. the activist suspects that these sharks or

send a process with a fence or cut off live sharks, etc. the mutilated animals are then thrown back into the water and left to die in the you, this cruel practice is banned. crews have to bring the whole animal ashore even so . the shark fin trade remains lucrative in europe. the high for specimens, invest clarkson's, or the gold of the sea of fish and fishing crews in the you get 10 to 12 zeros for akilah was sent in the wholesale exports to asia are already around 500 to 700 euros of kilo in quite a time the product reaches consumers in asia, the price is between one and one and a half 1000. a small bowl. 100 grams of shirts, and my cost $150.00 euros on best. so that's a profit margin that's almost comparable to the drug trade. it's important, 100 plus foot, likewise. imports and exports account for 22 percent of the global

shocked me. trade. the world's largest ex border is spain which supplies countries including portugal, brazil, italy, and germany, where the smoked meat of the spiny dogfish spc is a delicacy. shark fins are mostly exported to asia, especially to china. other big players include japan, britain, and panama. in total, the global trade in neat and fins is worth around $500000000.00 euros per year. we show sort of like a claim of old hawk, our footage from vigo. several years ago, she also conducted an undercover investigation at the fish market. the has called the thoughts about 5 o'clock in the morning since would fine. it's unbelievable. none of these animals are sexually mature,

yet. this is absolutely not sustainable. the next generation of blue sharks is be destroyed again, not soon by the blow on. the activists is also alarmed by the methods used on european long line fishing boats. she shows us a video sent to her anonymously. the fisherman who filmed it, was probably as shocked as she was by the brutality. the successful here's you can see here that the shark i used to live to the fisherman are bringing the shark in school nutrition in the high on lucky standing with his foot on the short cut the force. he takes the knife and decibels it too while it's still alive, is to that's a living animal that the fits not dead. this is how all these animals died. me. the video from 2016 shows what the fishermen in the harbor cafe were handing out.

the shorts were cut open lengthwise and gutted many of them fight for their lives. and it's all done in compliance with you regulations. these appeals and these animals are absolutely defense. let's see how about they can scream, but they have the nervous system just like humans. a lot, so the shark is in terrible pain. right now. the service isn't an exception. what's the best? it's the norm. we've made contact with an industry insider in spain, a manager at a company that sells sharpening engines. she's willing to talk to us, but wants to remain anonymous, given the highly controversial subject. you cut the very open and just the like the soc is still like trying to like 3 bucks. that would be like one cards at the back of the head which, which would make him depths, but they, the fishes on the european visits didn't do that. their lives, sharks and the fishermen have arms. think about it.

we tried to do it in the best possible way, but we have to think about the safety of the workers. we're not brutal when we fish, we have to take care of ourselves. but what's happened if the stuff in contain would be successful, and that would be a trade been defense or part of the business. if we catch sharks are we supposed to just throw them away? that wouldn't be economical. it's not as if we can stop sharks from biting when we cast long lines. they're still going to come and get caught. we're the 1st people to be thinking about sustainability. several times the industry insiders dresses, the number of people in vigo, who are dependent on fishing. you have to understand the fishermen do a really honorable job. their main goal isn't to kill animals. it's to create a livelihood for themselves. there's a difference. we've

come to brussels, where the european commission is looking into a potential trade band. it's a process that will take months if not years. we're here to meet. i know that dance spokesman for maritime affairs. so they are countries like canada or the u. k. a school have already like shot shocks, interests bins. why does it take like a can pain, like the stuff and then you can pay and to start talking about this topic, if we haven't started talking about this topic and you know, but when it comes to trade measures, it's always something that's complicated for you to to work on every environmental measure that affects trades creates issues in terms of how, how this effect of the trade relations some people we talked to a know expecting like starting tactics or something like, uh, the topic would be like the open, but it won't come to an end, if this like,

and i'm just found the fear of what you think about that. our policy making is generally quite robust and based in the data and the evidence. but also it's a slow because we need a lot of people to agree on every piece of legislation that we make. the new european commission that will be formed with after the elections and the new european parliament will have their own their own minds depending on what citizens thoughtful that makes it all. the more important to create a scientific basis for the decision making process. we returned to spain to ben meal in the northern basque region. the coastal town is lou customer with us research base. from here, he and his team go out to sea to study short populations comes then i mean, you can start loading the diving gear board part. the data collected by the team will be made available to international organizations. it can also be used to set

cash corners until now, quality data has been lacking the foot of items to beat. we're trying to shine a light on the distribution of the blue shark and the make. oh, shock doesn't get results. will be important. as we tried to fill in gaps and the data to, to hopefully ensure more sustainable population managements of people for that. so now how do you governmental village suspects that the coast along the bay of this k is a nursery habitat for blue sharks? the more conclusively, he can prove this, the more likely it is that authorities will establish protected areas for them. the team have underwater camera rigs, thanks to donations, and a bit of the i, why is i'm a 5. so this is a mobile camera traveling many well that it together himself on the it's says i'm or assembling it now. cool. meant us to make sure we can document the sharks that just give them i don't know if i'm allowed to say this, but this is an old traffic sign which i found on the side of the road. i'm not

loaded up the team heads half an hour out to see they look for a good spot and then lower the camera truck into the water guys. now this is a good place. lots is the gps track are on many and stuck up thanks to the gps transmitter . they can locate the camera later and come back to collect it of the 5 by the shelf, and hopefully see you soon. the time of the trap will not float in the water for 5 or 6 hours. it's at a depth of about 10 meters. so as the camera records, the sharks are attracted by fish scraps and a bait that even the shyest of them will be caught on video. this gives the team a more accurate idea of how many animals are in the area. later lucas miller wants

to lower a shark in person in any of these causal committee. and i tried to catch the animals and photographed that. ok to document their size and their sex does. and if we're lucky, we can also put a satellite transmitter on the subject is that not puts you in the team repeatedly, poor fish stock into the sea. they also lower the predators with bait. when a shock appears, they have to act quickly. the, the researchers bring the chart close to the boat and hold it while they take its measurements. make sure that they attach a gps transmitter to the doors off in a place where it won't cost the animal pain. then they allow the chart to swim back down into the sea, where it will give them valuable data about things like migration routes and life

span. every time that we go out, we need to take all the 8th other we think it's going to be useful for our study. we take the place 10 but to if we find child. so we try to estimate the size. if we are able to see the 6, and if they have a stock or not, if we have from them before a month, it's been time to take the camera truck out of the water. when we get home, we'll see if we filmed any sharks. on the way back to port an encounter with a pot of dolphins underlines the wonders of the ocean that mina and his team are trying to concern. the villa is disappointed. the camera didn't capture any sharks. but 2 days later,

there's this precious shot of a blue shark pump. it's more evidence that the coast is a nursery habitat that needs to be protected. the scientists and we only provide neutral data. we just try to provide the facts which then become a basis for political decisions and of a point of defense item, the political decisions that exactly batch defense item. and i take into account economic interests, cultural interests, and also the livelihoods of the people who work in the fishing industry and depend on it off. that's why i hope that we, as a society will find a solution that offers the future for both animals and people. perspective with us . the marine biologist will continue to fight against the negative image that sharks have. he wants to protect the animals before it's too late. the high for looking at the shocks and trade, it makes you a motional. i'm because because the next day i can go out and swim with these

animals. i can take a breath and then dive and be completely weightless, substituted gliding alongside them. awesome. so the, there are moments when we're just co existing and again, when this intelligent animal is looking at me from 20 centimeters away from swimming with me and paying me respect, the kind of respect the wish humans don't really reciprocate. suffice them some months back can be heartbreaking. but what can we do and said it was all we can do is keep fighting anyone jobs or this gonzales, some of them forgive them as often as we are. then we can hope that at some point we, as people will have that love and that respect inside us is it will begin to recognize the value of co existing with these animals toward suspense. of all, i'm sorry, the

not just another day. so much is happening all at once. we take time to understand this is the day i'm in the look at the current use events analyzed by experts and critical thinking is this is with the weekdays on dw, what old cod tires have to do with the production? here's a hands on so

much now on youtube the in the sunset, venezuela father jose motor. yeah. same i know is on a mission his message stopped beating mate and start teaching solely based protein . but his motive isn't morality. no sustainability. yep. and even balance here, cuz sometimes i've been asked if i'm a vegetarian and i say primarily now, how do you mean to know in a country with full nutrition, unreliable electricity and rising costs.