2005 Volumevolume 14,14, No.No
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© SRI 2005 VolumeVolume 14,14, No.No. 11 Shark Research Institute Newsletter Shark Research Institute Global Headquarters P.O. Box 40•Princeton, NJ 08540•USA•Phone: 609609----9 2 1 --- 3 5 2 2 SLAUGHTER IN PARADISE: J’ACCUSE ! BY W OLFGANG L EANDER Charles Darwin visited the back into the ocean to face an agonizing death, is Galapagos Islands as a brutal. young man on a voyage in The “International Galapagos Tour Operators 1835. His keen observation of Association” (IGTOA) fears the worst. In their the island flora and fauna January 2005 bulletin they came to the sobering found nowhere else on earth conclusion that they are “slowly but surely losing the led him directly toward his fight to preserve the Galapagos Islands.” And: “With theory of the evolution of neither government understanding nor support, and species. Not much later, corruption from top to bottom, the future is bleak.” Herman Melville sailed to the Finning is a relapse into bad practice that was Galapagos as a whaler and already outlawed. Shark fishing and the export of called the volcanic archipelago “Las Encantadas”, shark fins was banned in September 2004 after a the “Enchanted Islands”. long battle between militant local fishermen and the Ecuador claimed the “Encantadas” in 1832 from government, which had to give in to massive Spain. At that time they seemed to be of no value to pressure from international conservationist any imperial power. In 1978, the UNESCO declared organizations. However, the illegal practice of shark the Galapagos a World Heritage Site. Today, the finning carried out with the tacit approval of the islands are Ecuador’s top tourist destination, Ecuadorian Navy and local law enforcement officers generating over USD 150 million per year in never diminished. revenues. Nature lovers consider the islands a There is simply no political will to end the chaotic paradise. situation in the Galapagos National Park. Eleven Yet, this paradise is in deep trouble. Park Directors, probably none of them with the There is growing concern among local and slightest commitment to their duties, have come and international scientists and conservationists that gone in the past 24 months. The fact eloquently massive tourism, illegal immigration, pollution, over- speaks for itself. fishing, and political meddling seriously threaten the Under these deplorable circumstances the islands. “aleteros” (i.e., shark finning fishermen) feel quite Headlines of articles on the Galapagos typically uninhibited to operate within the boundaries of the read as follows: “Conservation on the Brink”; “World Marine Reserve. Experts estimate the number of Heritage in Danger”; “Longline Fishing to be allowed sharks killed in the Galapagos solely for their fins to in the Galapagos”; “Chaos reigns in the Galapagos amount to as many as 600,000-700,000 per year. National Park”. “El Comercio”, the leading That represents some 80 percent of all the sharks Ecuadorian daily newspaper, published an caught in Ecuador, the fishing port of Manta being alarmingly realistic article on shark finning in the the principal “killing center” on the mainland. Galapagos on March 15, 2005, under the heading: The politics behind it would completely astound “The massacre of Sharks in the Galapagos naïve international observers. On March 5, 2005, the continues at an accelerated rate”. president of Ecuador, Lucio Gutierrez, visited the ‘Finning’, slicing off the fins of sharks, often from Galapagos and held extensive meetings with live animals, then dumping the helpless creatures representatives of the local fishing community. Page 2 Field Notes Field Expeditions All expedition volunteers pay their own From our Director expenses, some of which are deductible from The year for me started slowly with routine work at US Federal Income taxes. Since we all come the Shark Research Center including lab from different areas, costs do not include airfare. renovation, planning the next phase of the False Bay white shark research project with my graduate Volunteers must be certified divers (with the student Alison Kock, an interview by the BBC exception of Holbox) Natural History Unit on 'Shark Attack', and a talk on Cocos Island July 17-27, 2005 'Sharks: research and education' to the Royal Society of South Africa (to which I was elected a Expedition Leader: Alex Antoniou, Ph.D. fellow). Objective: Population survey of sharks The pace accelerated with a whirlwind trip to $3350 per diver, 2 spaces remaining England between March 4 and March 23, in which I first attended the official launch of the Harper- Holbox, Mexico July 5-11 & 11-17, 2005 Collins version of the shark guide and worked with Expedition Leader: Joan David people from the UK Shark Trust at the London Objective: Photo catalogue of whale sharks International Dive Show at the Excel conference $1550 per person, per week center in Docklands, London. I then visited the Natural History Museum in South Kensington to Guadalupe Island Oct 21 - 21, 2005 see the new Darwin Center, talked with the fish Expedition Leader: Dean Fessler curation staff, and worked on a guitarfish holotype. Objective: Document behavior of white sharks I subsequently met with members of the Save our $2450 per diver Seas Foundation in a hotel near Hyde Park to discuss research and educational funding and other matters. I traveled by train to Plymouth in SRI Field Researchers will be onsite at the Cornwall to visit Marc and Julie Dando, the following locations. Volunteers are encouraged producers of the shark guide, to discuss future to participate in the field research for a week or book work and to visit the nearby Eden Project. I longer. also visited the Shark Trust offices in Plymouth (and was nominated as a patron of the Trust), and La Paz, Mexico Cost per week $1200 the nearby Marine Biological Association of the June 4-11, September 10-17; September 24- United Kingdom and the National Aquarium to October 1; October 1-8; October 8-15; October discuss cooperative research. From there, I 15-22; October 22-29; October 29-November 5 journeyed to Newbury for an expert meeting of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group to determine the Tanzania , with Suzy Quashnichka, SRI-UK conservation status of various cartilaginous fishes Objective: Video catalogue whale sharks for an upgrade of the IUCN Red List. This was Cost per week $2800 more than a bit hectic, coupled with a cold and October 27-November 3; November 3-10; laryngitis exacerbated by the English winter and too much talking, and required a bit of rest after I November 10-17; November 17-24; returned. The trip inspired numerous thoughts on November 24-December 1; December 1-8; future growth of SRI, particularly after visiting the December 8-15; December 15-22, 2005 Eden Project. LJV Compagno Utila, Honduras February 11-18, 2006 SRI-LaPaz Field Station, Mexico: Aerial Survey: Expedition Leader: Matt Potenski Whale sharks are still being spotted in the Bay of Objective: Tag whale sharks LaPaz, long past the time that they normally depart Cost: $1350 per diver the area. Whether this is due to an unusual amount of nutrients washed into the bay is not known. Palau February 17-25, 2006, continued on page 5 Estimated cost $1900, plus accommodations Expedition Leader: Dean Fessler Volume 14, No. 1 Page 3 Slaughter in Paradize: J’Accuse—continued from page 1 Exactly one week later, Mr. Gutierrez signed a finning to the business of drug trafficking where decree to re-allow the export of shark fins as long everything is about big, big money and thus next to as sharks are being caught as “by-catch”, impossible to control. The analogy may not be far- effectively annulling the September 2004 fetched. prohibition to export shark fins. However, there is a significant difference: drug This is outrageous as the new decree opens the consumption is a socio-pathological problem that door to indiscriminate, totally uncontrolled shark will not throw the world out of balance. But the finning. The Galapagos fishermen, some of whom unrelenting demand for shark fins to be processed are known as an aggressive lot of criminal thugs, into a broth of alleged aphrodisiac value to cater to will concentrate on fishing sharks and innocently an ever growing number of mindless shark fin soup declare their catch as being “accidental”. consumers in East Asia will inexorably lead to the In 1998, Transparency International in Berlin extinction of sharks. ranked Ecuador among the most corrupt countries This is what WildAid, a US based conservation in the world. Two years later the Andean nation agency working in the Galapagos, has to say in was awarded the dubious distinction of being the this context: most corrupt country in Latin America. “The indiscriminate slaughter of sharks to satisfy Corruption in this small banana-exporting country this growing market is causing drastic and is indeed all-pervasive. Hardly anything works in irreversible changes to Galapagos biodiversity. Ecuador unless appropriately “lubricated”. Why? Sharks help maintain healthy, balanced Lucio Gutierrez, a formerly obscure army colonel populations of fish, birds and marine animals who staged an ill-fated coup d’etat early in 2000, preying upon the weak, diseased and injured. promised to relentlessly fight corruption during the Additionally, countless species of cleaner fish electoral campaign – a pious obligation every depend on sharks to provide them with Ecuadorian presidential candidate routinely vows sustenance. The removal of the sharks from this to comply with in order to win votes. complex ecological equation would be After only a few months in power, Mr. Gutierrez’ catastrophic.” popularity began plummeting to pitifully low levels. Hence the urgency of stopping shark slaughter Most Ecuadorians consider him corrupt and NOW, not just in Ecuador but world-wide. incompetent. He is said to openly serve his However insignificant and largely unnoticed, there clientele with little regard to public opinion.