How Tunisia’s shrinking economy and fish stocks put shark on the menu

A lack of awareness and ever-increasing competition among fishing boats threaten one of the sea's most vital species

The temperature is cooling down in the fish market in Monastir, Tunisia. Still, the suffocating smell of the fish guts that have sat through the full force of the day's heat hangs heavy in the air. The stallholders have left now, but on the floor amid the detritus is the unmistakable shape of a severed shark's head.

Nearby, in a skip, the bodies of two guitarfish rays lie discarded, stripped of meat to the cartilage.