us up with a look at the shark fin trade of course, and get all the latest news information, including a story on uh on our website at dw dot com. check us out on youtube. i'm terry martin. thanks for watching. the, this is, he is hungry for the future. so seeing in southwest china says you 2000000 people live here. many of them are young and 3, and it's coming through making money, having fun with nice schools and some seems stuff. december 13th on d, w. today, many of the world sharks bases 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 gold of the 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 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, including and portugal have the world's biggest shocks, which includes funding operating in the atlantic and other oceans. the state. because this is one of the world's biggest chart trade hub. 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's entice you, found these are 3 fishing boats that arrived yesterday and on the dean. but those 2 are what we call long liners on each side. they catch tuna sword finish on sharp. you know of ships, there's boons of hi site. so that means they could well adjust,

unloaded sharks, high off on 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 to, if we take these fish out of the ocean, well, end up destroying an entire marie and a half of times come to names while i run this old c on such to spend to years researching sharks and their role in marine ecosystems. he dives with blue sharks, mico 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, kind of 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 sites of itself. i can't let my personal feelings get in the way when it comes to

evaluating an entire industry and the lots of people here in be go, rely on for their livelihood. and again, seem to see from the dimensions young people, the 30 minutes later, our informant is back. with house 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. we'll see you guys later, really 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. the 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 and off. 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 them stacked on at least 15 pallets

just google, excuse me, as the are those blue sharks festival fits into a 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, then to avoid attracting attention. he leaves the markets as a fair film, some juveniles, and saw that there were quite a lot of baby sharks. subscripts 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 watch the footage in a shop. candice. it's shocking to see these little sharks that are basically just been born out is less than a year old. yeah. and here they are, the fish market. um, most of them would have been college in the nursery habitats getting us to refund. 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 about the point now the, 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. 6 sharks play a vital role in our oceans. these apex predators sit at the top of the complex

inter linked food chain. they keep the ecosystem balanced, also by eating sea 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 pray. 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 who most of all along the beach kind of dust mondays make congress yet. minors is of these days so now lu shock shows up a lot in animal feed to this. i'm fine, seemingly against mixed in tab protein 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'm 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 v, you know, 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 new 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 you in finance and is getting us because that's but the real conversation we need to have is about whether the laws

are adequate to gazette, cindy, the, 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. you have which supplies so much top the asian market. we're always complaining about. in fact, we have the one that supplying the shock fins. and i just didn't get that quoted under my coffee and gotten by glucose petition, stop spinning calls on your a to band sales of shark fins. he thinks that at 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. the european commission promised to end the practice and he, you and even made legally binding promises funded, disappeared from the commissions implementation agenda. comments on the portal for the residents, a v go fishing is a key source of income. we've 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 series. and cna are from sierra leone and sent a goal, respectively. they show us photos of their work that sort fish and that one's blue shock. so just think i'll just double click the

wedding side and found out the high speed, but the difficult shot more than 200 or 500 feet and of a colleagues got hurt because of fox is very high. very, very, very high. was working low stuff. sometimes some people die of accident. maybe the cable cuts hits you anybody if you want to look to see lots of 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 house, right? the same money for a family. the company i mean is and most of the call is pretty much it's a very nice company. maybe sometimes you get some 3000 the most associated to give you 2500. so ship to give you 4000 and push them in very, very 5 30 am the next day. marine biologist lucas miller pays another under cover 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 years, 88 per kilo. in recent years, the average export price for a kilo of shark fin has been 16 year rose. within 5 times as much the ruler 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 have completely outlaw the trade in sharks, insightful, some complex stuff. tom does that says northern european union is one of the major

fed ex borders that still haven't taken that step also for an export to be done. these are sitting on the screen. most of our next stop isn't over a housing in western germany. we've come to the large scale planet ocean exhibition to meet activist cities a 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 sharks ends . she's even provided the exhibition with some fins that turned up in germany kicking 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 on the active list suspects that these

sharks were sent 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 higher specimens, invest clarkston or the gold of the sea of fish and fishing crews in the you get 10 to 12 zeros for a kilo wilson in the wholesale and exports to asia are already around 500 to $700.00 euros of kilo income by the time the product reaches consumers in asia, the price is between $1.00 and $1.00 and a half 1000. a small boat, 100 grams of shocks and my cost $150.00 euro's one that's, 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

shark 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 r 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 we had fun. 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. of course. okay, takes the knife and a symbol of that and while it 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 e. 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. this isn't an exceptional, it's not the best fit for 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 belly open and just see 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. there live 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 happens 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 our dad yann's spokesman for maritime affairs. so they are countries like canada or the u. k. um, who have already like shots shocks and traits bins. why does it take like a companion like this 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 trades measures, it's always is something that's complicated for you to to work on every environmental measure that affects trade creates issues in terms of how, how this affects all of the trade relations. some people we talked to a know expecting like starting tactics or something like that topic would be like

the open, but it won't come to an end if this like. and i'm found a fear of what do you think about that? our policy making is generally quite robust and based in the data and the evidence for the also it is 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 form if 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 ban 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 see to study short populations comes to them. i didn't know that you can start loading the diving gear. both part the data collected by the team will be made available to international

organizations. it can also be used to set catch cortez until now, quality data has been locking me for by doing this could be different trying to shine a light on the distribution of the blue shark and the make co shark. that's a good result will be important as we tried to fill in gaps in the data, to, to hopefully ensure more sustainable population managements of people for that. so now i'd take a minute to the 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 d, i y is that number 5. so this is a mobile camera traveling many above it. it together himself on the divides something bar assembling it now equipment us to make sure we can document the sharks that's giving 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. for not

the loaded up, the team heads half an hour out to see they look for a good spot and then lower the camera trap into the water guy. so this is a good place. lots is the gps track are on many district thanks to the gps transmitter . they can locate the camera later and come back to collect it by itself and hopefully see you soon. we come up a trap of not float in the water for 5 or 6 hours. it's 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,

the customer that wants to lower a shark in person. yeah, any of these codes will come in. i tried to catch the animals and photographed that . ok to do to document their size and their sex does. and if we're lucky, we can also put a satellite transmitter on them, is up to you is that enough to see him? 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 3 search and bring the chart close to the boat and hold it while they take its measurements. they attach a gps transmitter to the doors locked in a place where it won't cause the animal pain. then they allow the chart to swing back down into the sea, where it will give them valuable data about things like migration routes and live

spam. every time that we go out, we need to take all the data that we think is going to be useful for our study. we take the place 10 by 2 if we find child so we try to estimate the size. if we are able to see the 6 on, if they have a stock or not, if we off from them before months, 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 pint of dolphins underlines the wonders of the ocean that mina and his team are trying to conserve. the lyla 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 because we just tried to provide the facts which then become a basis for political decisions and of a politician, chatham with political decisions and exactly batch defense items. and they take into account economic interests, cultural interests, and also the livelihoods of the people who work in the fishing industry and depend on it. that's why i hope that we, as a society will find this solution that offers a 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 and the 12th 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, absolutely 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 that we humans don't really reciprocate size, then someone's back can be heartbreaking. but what can we do instead of it was, all we can do is keep fighting and do our jobs and so allied, some of them from deadlines also. then we can hope that at some point we, as people will have that love and that respect inside us inclusive. so it will begin to recognize the value of co existing with these animals works with sense of the

people in trucks injured, trying to feed the city center the straight. i mean the around the world more than 130000000 people us we of mine because no one should have to

make up your own mind. dw may 4 mines. the inverse of art is appearing everywhere. color for expedition skittering digital art installations have proven extremely popular with the public. in theory, these exhibition should allow us to fully sink into the art. so how well do they work in practice? it can they turn us all into art lovers? here's one example of immersive arch made by turkish american artist for speak an adult. but before we get into his work, let's go over the basics immersive art one. 0 one. what exactly is it immersive? comes from the latin word mercy o which means to plunge into many are already familiar with immersion from the.