PIPIT’S REVENGE AS SHARK FOUND IN DOG FOOD, BUT IT’S NO LAUGHING MATTER FOR SHARKS

Pipit, the black retriever in Jaws, may have been a shock shark death in the classic Steven Spielberg film, but scientists have found that the tables have turned, and that now instead of sharks eating dogs it is dogs - and cats - eating sharks in their food.

The sale of shark fins is what most people think of when they think of man's catastrophic culling of sharks for food, but this is another way that shark and shark products are potentially silently swimming into our homes.

The scientists at Yale-NUS College, Singapore, tested over 40 different pet foods from 16 brands in Singapore, using DNA barcoding.

It found most products used generic words in their ingredients listings, such as “fish”, “ocean fish”, “white bait” or “white fish”. Whilst others did not list fish at all.

A total of 144 samples were DNA sequenced, and 45 were found to contain shark DNA, according to a report in The Guardian.

Amongst those species identified were blue shark, silky shark and whitetip reef shark, the latter two are both listed as vulnerable, so shouldn't be finding their way into dog and cat bowls.

The findings were published in Frontiers in Marine Science. It's not clear if shark products find their way into other pet foods around the world, but it is possible.

If dog and cat owners contact the makers of the brands of dog and cat food they buy, then perhaps they can help shed more light on whether our pets are eating shark as part of their diet.

And something that may be fishy when it comes to whether it is actually shark that people are eating is the humble fish and chips.

Words by Dean Newman

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