gringorio - 6-18-2004 at 06:57 AM
from: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=0...
Sharks, turtles disappearing
LUKE TURF
Tucson Citizen
SAN CARLOS, Son. - A demand for aphrodisiacs is killing populations of shark and turtle in the Sea of Cortez.
Shark and turtle sightings are few and far between nowadays, although both were plentiful 50 years ago.
"We have seen very, very few sharks in the sea. Sharks are very rare," said Enric Sala, deputy director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and
Conservation at the University of California in San Diego.
Sala estimates shark populations are down to 10 percent of what they were 50 years ago because of over fishing. Retired University of Arizona marine
biology/oceanography Professor Donald A. Thomson estimates turtle populations also are down to 10 percent of what their population once was. Thomson
has studied the Sea of Cortez since 1963.
Demand for shark fin soup, considered an aphrodisiac in some Asian cultures, has created the practice of shark-finning, in which the shark is caught,
the fins are cut off and the crippled and dying fish dumped back into the water.
Shark-finning was banned in the United States in 2000 but is legal in Mexico.
Shark fins sell for 50 to 80 times the price of shark meat. A bowl of shark fin soup goes for up to $50 in Asia, according to Iliana Ortega, a
representative of Conservation International for the Gulf of California region.
The rest of the shark is often left to rot, its finless corpse floating ashore, Ortega said.
Sala studied what few fishing records he could find and conducted underwater dives to estimate shark populations in the Sea of Cortez. Mexico doesn't
keep good fishing records, Sala said, so making an accurate count is difficult.
According to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics, more than 50,000 pounds of dried shark fins were imported to the United States from Mexico
between 1999 and 2002. None has been brought in since 2002, said Norma Agosttini, an import specialist with the Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection.
Slicing off shark fins wasn't part of Mexican culture, Ortega said. Mexican shark fishermen used to use the whole shark. But at up to $80 per fin, she
said, it was more worthwhile just to cut the fins off and seek out the next catch because shark carcasses take up too much space on a boat.
The turtle, however, goes way back in Mexican culture, and while protected under Mexican law, turtles often end up stuck in gill nets and caught on
lines, only to be sold on the black market for their meat.
One of Tucsonan Martha Thompson's earliest memories is of a monstrous turtle laid out for a feast on her grandmother's patio just down the beach in
her native Guaymas, Son., when she was 4.
"It was huge," Thompson said of the traditional main course at her baptism feast 30 years ago. "That's why there aren't any more."
Mexicans' desire for turtle meat sent populations plummeting, Ortega said. And the government's declaration of turtle as an endangered species in the
1980s sent the market underground, where a turtle sells for $300 or more.