Following our phone interview with Rosado we caught up with Fisheries
Administrator Beverly Wade who told us that the incident does highlight the
need for better regulation. According to Wade, they have sent a team out to
the area to investigate to find out just how many sharks may have been killed
and what impacts if any it may have.
Beverly Wade, Fisheries Administrator
“From a layman’s perspective, the pictures are pretty much I
guess unpopular and gory because the sharks in Belize have primarily become
a tourist attraction. But I guess from a fisherman’s perspective, it is
everyday life. So what we did when we saw the pictures this morning, this morning
was the first official report that we got on this issue, there was a phone call
placed to the Fisheries Department over the weekend and we investigated and
there was no fishing happening. We have sent some officers out to Caye Caulker
to investigate to see where the sharks are caught and to see if the people are
properly licensed because for the record it is not illegal catch sharks in Belizean
waters. There is a shark fishery within Belize and I can safely say that it
is kind of localized fishery, it is done primarily in the south and by some
of our northern communities.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
Now I know there are different numbers being thrown out there; one tour guide
is saying that he noticed thirteen sharks on board this vessel and another is
saying that over a two night period over 25 sharks, nurse sharks were killed.
Do you believe all of these sharks came from the same breeding site?
Beverly Wade,
“We have not confirmed the numbers yet and we can’t really tell
by the pictures that were sent to us. But what I could say is that this is normally
the time when mating occurs and I know people have been reporting lately that
they are not seeing sharks in Shark Ray Alley. It is not necessarily that they
have been fished out but this is the time that they move out to go and mate.
So they move from that site that they traditionally aggregate for feeding, because
the tourism activity has really created a form of aggregation there were they
are accustomed to being fed and so they aggregate around there. And so this
is the time that sharks are moving out to carry out their mating activities
and so it could well be that quite a number were caught from some area where
they are breeding.
It is coming towards Easter and the markets in Honduras, Guatemala, and
even in Mexico, there is a demand for corn sharks and what happens around this
time is that the shark species is actually targeted more around this time to
provide for that market. What you’re actually seeing is really a conflict
between two user groups; you have the tourism industry who practices a non-extractive
use for certain resources and then you have the fishing community who practices
extractive use of that very resource. There is now a need for us or there has
been a need for us lately to now put in, to legislate measures. Belize has a
draft plan now that we’re now ready to go into consultation with and from
that draft plan we have also developed draft legislation that is looking at
zoning for fishing of sharks, to look at setting quotas of shark, to look at
putting in special licenses for somebody who wants to engage in shark fishing.
Basically to bring to more regulation through such a fishery, to enable to get
back the information from that fishery to manage it properly and also to enable
us to monitor it and regulate it so that it is sustainable.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
But in the interim what will be done, something needs to be done here.
Beverly Wade,
“Right, I think that our best advice to the executive will be to now
look at the draft legislations that we have in place because they are really
based on the precautionary approach and to enable those legislation which would
now allow us to put some restriction on fishery and to put some restrictions
on the gear types that are used.”
Beverly Wade says the goal is to ensure that no livelihood is being
jeopardized or that no group is being marginalized in anyway.
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