Japanese angelshark is eaten and the rough skin is made into a type of leather called shagreen for use in wood finishing. Angel sharks in general are highly threatened by commercial trawl fisheries due to their susceptibility to capture and low rate of reproduction, and angel shark species elsewhere are known to have declined markedly under fishing pressure. Trawling activity in the Yellow Sea and other parts of the northwestern Pacific is intense and, coupled with pollution, has had a serious impact on the local ecosystem. The Japanese angelshark population is suspected to have declined by up to 50% or more under
Lampshades made from human skin After her conviction for war crimes, General Lucius D. Clay, the interim military governor of the American Zone in Germany, reduced her sentence to four years' prison on the grounds "there was no convincing evidence that she had selected Nazi concentration camp inmates for extermination in order to secure tattooed skins, or that she possessed any articles made of human skin". Jean Edward Smith in his biography, "Lucius D. Clay, an American Life", reported that the general had maintained that the leather lamp shades were really made out of goat skin. The book quotes a statement made by General Clay