Fin

Wow.

So this is it.

Tell me about what they found on this boat.

Man: This vessel came here to Liberia

with a long line fishing license.

What they were doing was using gillnets

that are prohibited by law

because they're so particularly destructive.

The primary catch was shark.

We refer to them as the galician mafia

because they're fishing syndicates involved

in other types of criminal activity,

which makes them criminal syndicates

that are involved in this kind of business.

Oh, that's fucking cold.

Agh.

Man: Watch your step. It's very slippery.

Holy shit.

Yeah. Look here.

Here, look there. Look.

Holy shit.

Look at all this. It's all fin.

Roth, narrating: Growing up, I was obsessed with scary movies.

And the rush of horror films.

I started making movies.

And I said, "I want to be a director.

This is what I want to do forever."

Oh!

This is all I want to do.

[Chainsaw buzzing, man screams]

I want to be the one pushing the button

that shocks the audience.

Aah!

Roth, narrating: Growing up, nothing scared me

more than sharks.

And that was all because of one film--

"jaws."

Man on film: A mindless eating machine.

Roth, narrating: I was terrified of sharks,

but also fascinated by them.

Hi, there. It's me again. Eli roth.

I'm at the house of Gabriel asner,

and I'm going to interview him.

Gabriel?

What's your name? Gabriel.

Roth: The head of discovery asked,

"have you ever hosted a talk show?"

I'm like, "no,

but I think I was born to be a talk show host."

He goes, "you'd be great for 'shark after dark.'"

I'm your host Eli roth, welcome to "shark after dark,"

our late night show with shark week experts,

interviews, clips, and plenty of conversation.

You lost your arm and a leg to a bull shark in 2009,

and now you are an advocate for their conservation.

Very few people actually get eaten by a shark.

They always come, they take a bite,

and then they take off when they realize that you're not food.

Roth: The craziest thing I learned

was that without sharks, the planet can die.

Sharks are doctors of the sea.

When they're not there, diseases turn into epidemics.

Man: They've been around long before mammals

or other fish or even dinosaurs came on the scene.

Oceans touch every one of us

and the life of every one of us in many ways.

Every second breath we take comes from the ocean

because 50% of the world's oxygen

is produced by phytoplankton.

So the ocean is still a major part

of our life support system today.

Sharks shape these ecosystems over the evolutionary history.

Sharks act much like the police on land.

Once in a while they eat something,

most of the time, they scare everything.

And they keep certain species out of certain habitats

where those species could do damage.

So the sharks are restoring

some kind of balance to the ecosystem

when they're pressed.

When sharks are taken away, we see that balance change.

And we see large negative changes in the ecosystems

that often cannot be reversed easily.

Roth: Discovery said to me, "do you want to go for a shark dive?

"I bet we can do that. We can film it

and make it part of 'shark after dark.'"

and I was like, "are you kidding me?

My whole life I've wanted to do that."

I was nervous. I was scared.

But it's truly amazing when you can face your fears,

because you realize how much of it is just in your head.

Roth, narrating: For me, this happened in the waters of The Bahamas.

I learned to stop fearing sharks.

I could not believe how social they were.

They were curious, shy, intelligent animals.

Some were friendlier than others.

It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

Roth, narrating: They were the most beautiful animal I had ever seen.

I couldn't imagine harming

even one of these majestic, intelligent creatures.

Roth: So what do you think is happening to the planet?

What's happening is there's an insatiable demand

for shark fin soup.

And they're getting walloped all over.

And which is used for shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy.

The conservative number of sharks killed every year

is 100 million sharks.

For a long time in estimating shark mortality,

we've relied on official figures from the food

and agriculture organization of the United Nations.

Right now we know about 25 species

that are either endangered or critically endangered

which could go extinct within the next decade or two.

The special problem with shark finning is

everybody can do it.

Small artisanal boats off Baja, California and Mexico can do it.

Everybody is part of this.

Roth: Sharks are a difficult subject

because of the perception that sharks are these monsters

that want to eat us.

I want to help change the conversation.

I'm not a scientist.

I'm not a doctor. I'm not a marine biologist.

But I am someone who loves sharks,

and I care about the ocean.

And I want to understand what's happening to it.

Roth, narrating: I'm traveling the world to find out.

No matter how uncomfortable,

dangerous, or upsetting it gets...

I have to expose the truth.

Roth: Oh, shit. He's right there.

That's a mako?

Ok?

Roth: Can we let it go?

Is he gonna kill it?

Can we pay for it?

Can we pay for it and let it live?

It's the worst thing I've ever seen.

Roth: How many sharks a year

can a small fishing community take out of the water?

500 sharks? From 4 boats?

Yeah.

Roth: Are they aware that they're depleting the shark population?

You just pulled a baby out?

Yeah.

Oh, my god.

Roth: You look at it and you think, it's a fish, it's a fish.

And then they slice open the stomach

and there's babies that are probably 2 or 3 weeks away

from coming out in the world.

That was a mother.

That was a mother feeding her kids.

I don't care what species it is.

In one hook they killed 9 sharks.

May to August is the breeding season,

but here we are in the middle of April,

and they killed a pregnant shark.

How is the population ever gonna survive?

Man: Sharks are biologically different than fish.

When fish reproduce, what they do is they--

the males will release millions of sperm into water column

and females will move millions of eggs.

They mix together

and create millions of little eggs and larvae.

Sharks are different. Males and females mate.

Females have long gestation times.

Some sharks are pregnant for over 3 years.

And when they give birth to either eggs or live young,

it might take several years again before they reproduce.

Worm: Sharks are a little bit like us.

They mature late in their life,

between 10, 20, sometimes 30 years of age.

They have few offspring like us.

And they're slow to recover from any large mortality event

because they never had to.

When you're top predator, you don't have to evolve

the ability to withstand extra mortality,

much like people.

Now people are the top predators

and sharks are the underdogs.

Roth: You can't blame the fishermen

for trying to make a living.

But this is happening every day.

We're killing them, slaughtering them,

ripping their fins off, and for what?

This is for soup at a wedding.

It's crazy.

Nowadays a good quality fin would be like

a smooth hammerhead or a hammerhead,

they pay like 700 pesos, setecientos pesos.

Or a thousand pesos per kilo.

How long do they dry them out?

For 10 days.

Why is that?

Because this has a fiber inside, so it's a cartilage.

People just eat the cartilage?

Yeah, in a shark fin soup.

How much do they know about it?