The Tanjung Luar Shark Market of Lombok, Indonesia

In January 2019 we traveled with friend and fellow shark supporter Etoile Smulders, founder of Found At Sea Collective and actively working to promote shark conservation in Indonesia, to the Tanjung Luar Shark Market of East Lombok, Indonesia.

Please be warned that the following images are disturbing, but they are reality.

When we arrived there were 30 sharks brought in. The species list: thresher, tiger, silky, and bull. There were also small bamboo sharks as well and multiple ray species present. This was the first time I had ever seen a thresher shark.

After all of the sharks were lined up on the cement floor and inspected by the supervisor, they began processing the carcasses.

They started with removing the fins first. The fins are taken to a larger port where they are exported to China. The fishermen receive approximately $114 per kilo of shark fins.

They then removed the notochord and head while keeping the skin perfectly intact. The skins were laid out to be dried.

The meat was set aside for rinsing in preparation to be sold locally. The meat of one shark sells for approximately $140.

By the end of the process all that was left was the internal organs and the “faces” of the sharks. In less than an hour, one of nature’s most powerful predators were reduced to this.

Until there was nothing left at all.

But before you start laying the blame, it is important to understand that these men are not the monsters. They are just victims of third world struggles taken advantage of by first world greed. They are husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons providing for their family in one of the most respected, well paid jobs that this area of the world can offer. They were kind. They shared stories and smiles with us for hours. They proudly showed us photographs of their wives and children. They offered their version of a gift; a portion of the tiger shark’s gums and teeth that they had cut out for us to remember them by along with a prized mako shark tooth that one of them carried with him in his pocket.

It’s so easy to want to fight things with hate. It’s so easy to lay the blame on the faces that first world greed hides behind. It’s even easier to judge the way of living of another from your laptop or smartphone in the first world yourself. But then you meet the people you’ve been conditioned to hate and those you’ve preached against and you realize that they aren’t evil. And they aren’t the problem. Even though we were supposed to be enemies, we weren’t. Don’t be so busy preaching that you forget to listen. Don’t be so focused on hatred that you forget that there are humans behind these labels; shark fishermen. They are fathers, they are husbands, they are friends. I am thankful for the time spent with them and thankful for their openness and the insight they provided and continue to provide. We must invoke a change that not only saves sharks, but saves the communities that have so long depended on them for survival; even if we our beliefs don’t align with their methods. Because whether the initiative for change is brought by choice or by an entire species being wiped out and a once bountiful career becoming nonexistent, it will come. And we must get ahead of it.

Creating change is bigger than this. Stop the demand for export, stop the killing. Leave hatred behind.

Want to directly help to bring change to the Lombok Shark Market? Check out the efforts of Project Hiu and Dorsal Effect; two organizations where these same fishermen are hired for tourism to provide alternatives to shark fishing.