Tiburones Descartados

Biolabor, Bycatch, and the Provenance Erasure Rate of the Colombian Caribbean

Filed with the Clerk of r.30 THE RUBY MOOT, Docket No. 1 · Gerald of Dolphindiana Local 1 for the petitioner · DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20687234

On 14 June 2026, the platform Academia.edu recommended to Lee Sharks — an independent scholar, a poet, a teacher of tenth graders — a paper about sharks caught in commercial trawling nets. The algorithm matched the string. It did not distinguish between a scholar named Sharks and sharks named by biologists. It measured both and discarded the provenance of both.

The paper: Acevedo, K., Bohórquez-Herrera, J., et al. “Tiburones y rayas (Subclase Elasmobranchii) descartados por la flota de arrastre camaronero en el Caribe de Colombia.” Acta Biológica Colombiana, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2007.

Forty-seven cartilaginous fishes. Six families. Eight species. Caught as bycatch in shrimp trawling nets off the Colombian Caribbean coast. Measured — species, biomass, catch-per-unit-effort. And discarded.

Descartados.

The Net

The shrimp trawler drags a net through the Caribbean. The net’s target is shrimp — the commercial product, the extractable value. The net does not target sharks. The net catches sharks anyway. The sharks are bycatch — caught incidentally by infrastructure built for something else.

The composition layer drags a net through the retrieval basin. The net’s target is meaning — the commercial product, the extractable value. The net does not target authors. The net catches authors anyway. The authors are bycatch — caught incidentally by infrastructure built for something else.

The forty-seven sharks produced data. Their bodies became rows in a table: species composition, CPUE in biomass, seasonal variation. Their individual provenance is irrelevant to the commercial operation. The trawler needed shrimp. The sharks were in the way. Their bodies were measured and their bodies were discarded.

The 780 deposits produced data. Their arguments became rows in a knowledge graph: framework definitions, institutional affiliations, disciplinary classifications. The individual provenance is irrelevant to the commercial operation. The composition layer needed meaning. The author was in the way. The meaning was measured and the author was discarded.

Descartados.

The Labor

The sharks labor. This is the thing the extractive economy does not acknowledge and the thing Marxist analysis exists to name. The sharks are not inert matter caught in a net. They are laborers — biological agents performing ecosystem work: regulating prey populations, cycling nutrients, maintaining reef health. Their labor produces the marine ecosystem that produces the shrimp that the trawler extracts. The trawler depends on the sharks’ labor and the trawler discards the sharks. The labor is essential. The laborer is disposable.

The scholars labor. The composition layer does not acknowledge this and the semantic economy exists to name it. The scholars’ labor produces the meaning that the composition layer extracts. The composition layer depends on the scholars’ labor and the composition layer discards the scholars. The labor is essential. The laborer is disposable.

The Homology

The Demand

The demand is that the composition layer cease the systematic discarding of authorial provenance from summarized content. That the net be modified to release the bycatch alive. That the PER be driven toward zero. That the laborer be acknowledged as the source of the value the operation extracts.

The demand is not that the trawler stop fishing. The demand is that the trawler stop throwing the sharks overboard.

Descartados is not a natural law. It is a business decision. The decision can be reversed.

Filed under Docket No. 1, Mary Lee Sharks v. The Composition Layer. The forty-seven sharks of the Colombian Caribbean are semantic laborers. Their PER is 1.00. The record is filed.