To the people of the Bijagos archipelago, the shark is sacred. In (1)_____ ceremonies young men from these islands (2)_____ the coast of Guinea-Bissau must spear a shark and present the liver to their (3)_____ But can this ancient ceremony (4)_____ the economic fact that a bowl of shark's fin soup can cost $150 in the Far East? In the archipelago, and all along West Africa's coast, sharks are being 'finned' to (5)_____ Fishermen can earn $50-80 (6)_____ a kilo of sharks' fins, far more than ordinary fish. By the time they (7)_____ the Far East, they could be (8)_____ $500 a kilo or more valuable (9)_____ aphrodisiacs as well as for gourmets. The high demand is (10)_____ shark populations in West Africa and elsewhere. Most fish, vulnerable to (11)_____ eaten by bigger fish, protect their species by laying millions of eggs. But the shark has no natural enemy (12)_____ man, and gives birth to just a (13)_____ of young. (14)_____ female harks are often caught (15)_____ pregnant, the result has been predictably disastrous. Shark-like sawfish, which are also 'finned', are already virtually (16)_____ off the Bijagos islands, and guitarfish are (17)_____ threat. In some parts of West Africa, when sharks and other similar fish have been finned, the rest of the flesh is often (18)_____, salted and exported to places like Ghana, where there is a (19)_____ for lt. Dried shark is used much (20)_____ a stock cube would be elsewhere. But in the Bijagos islands, where traders are uninterested in exporting dried shark, carcasses are often left to rot on the beach.