A Seagate customer named Wendy C. of Dunsmuir,CA recently wrote this email to Seagate concerned about the sustainability of the sharks from which we get our shark cartilage used in the Beta GS product.
Comments: Is the shark cartilage in beta glucan sustainably harvested? Shark finn soup has made us all aware of the poor sharks plight. Thank you.
This type of question concerning Seagate’s use of shark cartilage in two of our 39 products is an occasional but important question that we receive from customers.
Hello Wendy,
Seagate’s annual use of shark cartilage powder to fill the Beta Glucan product is less than 100 lbs. However shark cartilage is a very important component of this product because the shark cartilage does help the joints.
The shark fishery off of Northern Baja California, Mexico has been in continuous operation since World War II. It is a relatively limited fishery for sharks in terms of volume of sharks caught. This fishery supplies the local seafood restaurants and grocery stores in the Ensenada / Tijuana area. The fishermen use small skiffs with outboard engines and handlines. There are no endangered or threatened species involved in this fishery. Approx. 90% of the catch is made up of thresher and blue sharks.
Although we are also a fishing company, we discontinued fishing for sharks in 1999 — not because of any sustainability issues. The problem was (and still is) that most shark meat has become contaminated with pesticides, pcbs and other carcinogenic chemicals. These chemicals fortunately do not affect the cartilage which does not absorb any chemicals. However since you are obviously concerned about the health of our oceans and the creatures that live in it … we would like to redirect your attention to the slow but steady destruction of this entire ocean environment by Man’s dumping of wastes. This is what inevitably will become the most important factor causing the decline in the world’s fish populations. The plight of the sharks is also caused from living in a toxic ocean.
Thank you for your email and concern!
Seagate Customer Service
This healthy garden of soft and hard corals almost looks like a photo of the Arizona desert. There is one tiny yellow fish and other smaller fish in the foreground to prove that this was taken underwater.