Endangered species of sharks are being served up to unsuspecting customers at fish and chip shops.
A Mirror DNA probe found dishes such as rock salmon contained spiny dogfish and starry smooth-hound.
One chippy told us: “I had no idea.”
A Mirror investigation found threatened spiny dogfish and starry smooth-hound were being passed off as rock salmon, huss and rock eels to unsuspecting customers.
Campaigners have now called for better labelling so wholesalers and chippies know exactly what species of fish they are selling.
Scientists tested 15 battered samples we bought from popular resort towns including Bournemouth, Brighton, Clacton, Great Yarmouth, Newquay and Poole.
Using DNA techniques they found 10 examples of spiny dogfish, classified as endangered in Europe and on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species. The other five contained starry smooth-hound, which is also threatened.
Exeter University bioscientist Greg Wannell, who carried out the tests for us, said: “These sharks typically take a long time to reach sexual maturity and, once they do, produce relatively few young compared to most fish commercially caught.”
The Marine Conservation Society said our research shows “most consumers are completely unaware of what they’re eating”.
Its head of fisheries and aquaculture Samuel Stone added: “Chippies should provide better information and labelling at the point of sale.”
It was until recently illegal to catch spiny dogfish in British seas. But it can now be sold as bycatch, meaning it accidentally got into nets used to catch other fish.
EU legislation permits the labels of dogfish, flake, huss, rigg, rock, rock eel or rock salmon for various types of shark.
But Blue Planet II researcher Matt Brierley, who helped with our probe, said: “We have a broken system, a list of old regional names for sharks that today are so poorly understood traders and wholesalers don’t know what they are buying or selling. Defra must change this.”
All the chippies we spoke to pledged to stop selling the shark meat.
Tom Bretorius of Parkway Fishbar, in Poole, Dorset, said he was “completely unaware the species was threatened”.
Cal Townshill, from Chippies in Newton Abbot, Devon, added: “I am sold this fish as rock salmon. I had no idea it was a threatened species. I won’t be selling it any more.”
Defra said: “Chippies can only sell these species if they were caught legally. Food labels should not be misleading.”
The DNA testing could not reveal the origins of the sharks sold in the chip shops, but the spiny dogfish is threatened globally.
A Defra spokesperson said: “Chippies can only sell these shark species if they were caught legally and sustainably. Food labels should not be misleading because people need complete trust in the food they are eating.”
