‘Like selling wolves from Yellowstone’: how protected US sharks are being sold off to foreign aquariums

While anglers cannot take endangered sand tiger sharks, a loophole lets private firms catch the fish to sell abroad, profiting from Delaware Bay’s conservation success Shortly after 12. 45pm, what remains of a 300-metre line goes taut.

Somewhere beneath the murky green surface of Delaware Bay, on the eastern US coast, a sand tiger shark has taken the bait of a mackerel chunk. Marine researchers at the University of Delaware haul the line towards a small boat as the shark’s grey-brown outline emerges. It is a large animal: 225cm (7ft) long with a 90cm girth. Its mouth…