March 2009    Download the Entire Issue (PDF)

Vol. 24, No. 3   What's this?

The Shark Hunt Continues at Cocos Island

poachers hack off the fins, rangers lack resources to stop them

from the March, 2009 issue of Undercurrent  

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“In 100-foot visibility, 50 hammerheads, two dozen whitetips, large silkies, huge marble rays, a dozen green turtles, fivefoot wahoos, a quarter-mile-long school of jacks, bait balls that block out the sun, streams of rainbow runners, then 300 hammerheads turn into view . . . .This is Cocos Island, 350 miles off the Costa Rican coast.”

I wrote that for Scuba Diving magazine in 1994. In October 2008, most of the hammerheads are gone; there are no silky sharks, no dusky sharks, no sailfish. In 30 hours underwater, I saw three tuna, some white-tips, marble rays, two dolphin, three mantas, a few dozen eagle rays and a small school of jacks. Most anything that will eat bait on a hook or swim into a net is long gone. A more common sight is rays, sharks and jacks trailing hooks and fishing line. Even in these 300 square miles, we managed to descend upon eight dead sharks - - two baby hammers, two silvertips and four whitetips - - dangling from abandoned long lines....