The study is titled "The Hideous price of Beauty". It is performed by Bloom, a not-for-profit association, whose mission is to protect the oceans; it points out the dramatic use by the cosmetic industry of deep-sea shark's liver oil. Thus, some species are close to extinction.
This study, says the association press release, shows that the cosmetic sector is the main world buyer of squalane, a non-oily moisturizing substance, ideal to formulate creams … Except that squalane is synthetised from squalene, for which the main source is, by far, deep-sea shark's livers; some of their species are almost extinct.
The Bloom’s study guesses that circa 90% of the world production of shark liver oil is used to product squalane for the cosmetic industry; this means the trap of more than 2.7 million deep-sea sharks every year.
Given the high market value of shark liver oil (12 to 15 dollars; € 9.30 to 11.6; GBP 7.7 to 9, per kilo), it appears that a distinct phenomenon of "livering" exists, in which the liver is removed and the carcass thrown back overboard, by analogy with "finning" (removal of shark fins, before the injured animals are thrown back, usually still alive).
"This study makes it evident ‘the inconvenient truth’ of the cosmetic industry, which, by its demand, induces the reality of non-renewable, non-regulated, sometimes unlawful, fisheries that target extremely long-living animals, which grow slowly, have a low fertility, this including species on the verge to extinction … Difficult to …
