Nurse sharks being killed near Caye Caulker
There is growing outrage that a large number of nurse sharks have been killed along the shores of Caye Caulker. And according to a tour guide who went to visit a small family island about five miles north of the island on Saturday, about thirty dead sharks were spotted in two boats. James Rosado was upset because he says that the nurse sharks are disappearing from Shark Ray Alley where he takes tourists to and he was shocked to find out that they were being slaughtered. News Five Jose Sanchez spoke to Rosado who explained what happened when he approached the men.
James Rosado, Dive master, Belize Diving Services
“I saw a sailboat from Corozal, its details is right there in the picture. They had two twenty-five foot Mexican skiffs; one with a sixty horse power, one with a forty horse power behind the boat with nets looking like gill nets. Two of the boats were filled with nets and in the middle compartment of the boats, both of them filled with sharks as well. Each boat had maybe about eight people on it and each person had a big mature nurse shark on the boat, just filleting the nurse shark as the pictures show you right there. I got very disappointed so I went and asked what’s happening. Why you guys killing the sharks you know? They gave me a simple answer, it’s their living. I understand that it’s their living you know and I tried to explain to them, I make my living as well off the sharks as well but we just don’t kill them. We take people to see them everyday and that’s our livelihood that they are killing right there. At the moment, my girlfriend took out her camera and she started taking some pictures. We took four pictures before we had to move off because they were getting rather rude.”
Jose Sanchez
“I was told one of them jumped into the water with a knife and came after you, is that true?”
James Rosado
“Yes, it is, yes it is. We were also threatened by these guys. These guys are actually on the island right now. They actually have their boat parked right up front by a dock in front of Popeye’s. They are here on the island so I don’t know what to do right now I don’t know if I’m safe.”
Beverly Wade, Fisheries Administrator
“There is clearly a clash between a none-extractive use of a resource and an extractive use of a resource. The tourism industry uses the shark but they practice a non-extractive use of that shark where they carry out people to view the sharks and to swim and feed the sharks while the fishermen directly extract the sharks for consumption purposes. This fish is very much seasonal. It happens a lot around this time because it’s the Lenten time and there are huge markets for fresh corned shark. The actual activity of going out and catching these sharks by the fishers is not illegal in anyway. Our officers went out there and they were all duly licensed. The boat was licensed also. There is nothing illegal about the activity but what this incident has clearly shown is that there is a need to put into law, management regulations for the shark fishery. We have been working on our national plan of action for shark and we have a first draft that is now ready to go to public consultation which is really a management regime for the shark fisheries and we’ve also developed some draft legislation coming out of the work and consultations that were carried out that’s looking at putting some restrictions on the shark fishery.”
Wade says another reason why the sharks may not be at Shark Ray Alley is because it is mating season.
