Hunt for the Easter Sharks: A genetic analysis of shark and ray meat markets in Guatemala

Guatemala, situated in Central America along the eastern Pacific Ocean and the western Caribbean Sea, is a major regional consumer of elasmobranch (shark and ray) meat during the Roman Catholic Lenten season. Elasmobranch meat is supplied by a combination of domestic fisheries and imports. Despite being a component of economic and nutritional security for local communities, fisheries and trade lack monitoring and management. Limited information on species-specific landings and fisheries and trade supply chains is further complicated by Guatemala’s bicoastal geography, which necessitates the separation of landings by geographic origin for robust stock assessments and targeted management interventions. This study employs molecular techniques to identify the species and, for the main species in trade, ocean basin provenance, occurring in meat samples collected from domestic markets across Guatemala in 2022 as well as historical samples from 2016 and 2017. Successful genetic testing of 370 meat samples identified 19 shark and ray species in the trade, including many threatened species, as well as a significant proportion of species now listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It also revealed substantial (22 %) mislabelling of teleost fish as elasmobranchs. Pacific coast markets and the largest inland market (Guatemala City, the largest urban centre) predominantly relied on domestic and imported landings from the Pacific coast, while Guatemala City also had inputs from domestic and likely imported landings from the Atlantic coast. One Atlantic coastal market sampled was exclusively supplied from that basin. Some imports of Pacific Ocean species are reported to CITES but there is limited national management of pelagic and coastal shark and rays landings on the Pacific coast, which needs to be rectified given the importance of these species and populations to elasmobranch meat consumption in Guatemala. Better enforcement of CITES is required to ensure sustainable imports of Atlantic Ocean sharks, while recent efforts to manage Atlantic domestic landings needs to be continued and likely expanded to promote sustainability.