Disclaimer

Luxembourg Elasmobranch Organization

Some people may think that the collecting of shark specimens is offensive and in fact I do NOT endorse the collecting of jaws aside from research or for educative purposes and I actually loathe the use of specimens as trophies, curios or conversation pieces (one of my pet peeves). I don't feel guilty about my own collecting since, save for a very few species, no shark is usually caught for its jaws alone, but rather for its much more valuable fins.

Perversely one might say that if you got a shark's jaws, you know that at least it was killed outright and not just finned alive, but this reasoning is of course quite cynical.

The real tragedy is that more than 100 million sharks are caught each year for that tasteless shark fin soup, a horribly wasteful and in case of live finning cruel practice. Nobody in his right mind should ever buy or order this stupid dish.

Neither do I want to encourage visitors to this web site to begin shark jaws collecting themselves, this should better be left to serious amateur naturalists and scientists; also tourists should best refrain from buying the often grotesquely distorted sharks jaws sold in shell shops and other tourist traps.

Nor do I advocate sports fisheries save those that practice catch & release and participate in official tagging programs.

In the case of rare jaws from endangered species like the great white shark, I take great care to verify the origins. As far as I can ascertain my specimens were either caught as bycatch or else are very old trophy jaws that were not caught for resale or speculative purposes.

Some species have recently been listed on CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild Fauna and Flora), all specimens from such species in my collection were either obtained before the listing went into effect or were imported with the necessary licenses (proof on hand).