My Account
It opened with the objective of extracting oil from the livers of shark for medicinal purposes and rendering down the carcases for fertiliser. The fins were saved and dried for export to China, where they were esteemed as a delicacy.
It is recorded that from high points above the harbour, it was not unusual to see the flats covered with sharks, ‘thick as shoals of mullet’. There is one report of two friends catching 151 sharks in three hours.
Commercial shark fishing was carried out over summer and according to some sources, if less than 1000 sharks were killed it was considered a poor season. The average shark was around 1.5-1.8 metres long, but sharks of up to three metres (10-feet) were not unusual.
The fishermen used manila lines with strong hooks and the bait was generally kahawai.
To attract the sharks, a quantity of oil from the livers of previously caught sharks was spread on the surface of the water. Larger animals were brought alongside the boat’s side where they were hit on the snout with a heavy mallet and then dispatched with a knife. Smaller sharks were hauled onboard to be killed.
The closure of the factory was attributed to over-fishing and incorrect fishing methods. For example, one method was to reel out a setline with about 100 hooks on it. The setting was no trouble, but “harvest comprised a string of shark heads because larger cannibals had cleaned the lines”.
When the factory closed, Fred Green, of Riverview, Matakana, continued a scaled down operation and some local farmers continued to catch and process sharks for their own use.
For centuries, shark oil had been a folk remedy to promote the healing of wounds and as a remedy for respiratory tract and digestive system problems.
