It was considered fine sport.

>Even in the seventeenth century, sharks enjoyed an evil reputation for ferocity, and Dutch sailors sometimes told stories of fish that had been caught and cut open to reveal the severed legs or arms of recently deceased shipmates in their bellies. Seamen viewed all sharks as man-eaters and would go to considerable trouble to hook them on their lines. Sometimes a captured fish would be killed and put to good use on board – the rough, sandpapery skin was sued to sharpen knives, heart and liver became ingredients for the surgeon’s nostrums, and the brains were turned into a special paste that was thought to ease the agony of childbirth. >But on other occasions, the men of a *retourschip* would exact revenge for all the sailors who had died between the jaws of a shark. It was considered fine sport to torture a captured monster by gouging out its eyes and cutting off its fins. Then an empty barrel would be tied to the mutilated animal’s tail and the shark would be returned to the Atlantic. Unable to see or swim or dive, the wounded fish would thrash wildly in gouts of its own blood, endlessly circling and smashing into the sides of the ship until it either died of exhaustion or was eaten by its fellow predators. ____________________________ **Source:** Dash, Mike. “The Tavern of the Ocean.” *Batavia's Graveyard*. Three Rivers Press, 2003. 107. Print.