Kalain Ho­sein

Me­terol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) yes­ter­day “strong­ly con­demned” the in­dis­crim­i­nate killing of over a dozen sharks at Buc­coo, To­ba­go.

This shark kill comes six days af­ter a 64-year-old British na­tion­al was at­tacked by a bull shark at Tur­tle Bay, To­ba­go. Last Fri­day, THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is­sued a $10,000 boun­ty for cap­tur­ing the shark in­volved in the at­tack but was quick­ly re­called fol­low­ing a pub­lic out­cry.

Yes­ter­day, there was more pub­lic out­cry af­ter videos emerged of fish­er­men gut­ting and clean­ing at least 13 sharks of dif­fer­ent species and sizes on the coast of Buc­coo.

This caught the at­ten­tion of the THA’s Di­vi­sion of Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Nat­ur­al Re­sources, the En­vi­ron­ment, and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment.

In a state­ment, the di­vi­sion said, “We un­der­stand the con­cerns and fears aris­ing from the re­cent in­ci­dent. How­ev­er, re­act­ing to this iso­lat­ed event by tar­get­ing and killing sharks in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly is not on­ly in­ef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing fu­ture in­ci­dents but al­so harm­ful to our ma­rine bio­di­ver­si­ty.”

It added, “We strong­ly urge the pub­lic to re­frain from en­gag­ing in any unau­tho­rised hunt­ing, cap­tur­ing, or killing of sharks. In­stead, we en­cour­age the pub­lic to fol­low shark safe­ty guide­lines, such as avoid­ing ar­eas where sharks are known to con­gre­gate, stay­ing calm if en­coun­ter­ing a shark, and re­port­ing any shark sight­ings to lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.”

All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Cur­tis Dou­glas echoed the di­vi­sion’s claims that this was an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent.

He ex­plained, “I haven’t seen any­thing in Ply­mouth, in Caanan, in Cas­tara. I haven’t seen any­thing like this, and as far as I know, I think the in­ci­dent is iso­lat­ed.”

How­ev­er, Dou­glas said the prac­tice of killing a school of fish or shiv­er of sharks is not to be en­cour­aged.

“We al­ways have sharks around. It was a mis­take, just an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent. We’re not go­ing to en­cour­age those types of things. As the pres­i­dent, I am go­ing to have a con­ver­sa­tion with the fish­er­folk.”

Dou­glas ad­mit­ted that the boun­ty got fish­er­folk ex­cit­ed be­fore it was re­called but stressed there was no need to kill sharks in groups.

Dr Di­va Amon, a ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist and di­rec­tor of Spe­Seas, ex­plained, “This neg­a­tive and un­for­tu­nate en­counter that hap­pened in To­ba­go on Fri­day (in­volv­ing vis­i­tor) was an in­cred­i­bly rare event. Let me start by say­ing that what we see from au­thor­i­ties in To­ba­go is on, or what we saw was un­in­formed de­ci­sion-mak­ing. And it has led, un­for­tu­nate­ly, to the slaugh­ter of mul­ti­ple adult sharks of To­ba­go.”

Shark con­sump­tion is em­bed­ded in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­ture, with fried bake and shark re­main­ing a pop­u­lar dish when vis­it­ing the na­tion’s North Coast beach­es.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture, of the 95 shark species in­hab­it­ing T&T’s wa­ters, 63 are en­dan­gered (list­ed as ei­ther Crit­i­cal­ly En­dan­gered, En­dan­gered, Vul­ner­a­ble, or Near Threat­ened).

The bull shark, which was in­volved in the at­tack on UK vis­i­tor Pe­ter Smith last Fri­day and the fish­er­men’s kill on yes­ter­day, is list­ed as a vul­ner­a­ble species. Ac­cord­ing to con­ser­va­tion­ists, the reper­cus­sions can be far-reach­ing once it is gone.

Ryan Manette, a ma­rine sci­en­tist and the di­rec­tor of Spe­Seas, ex­plained, “Sharks are es­sen­tial­ly what we call apex preda­tors. They help to main­tain the bal­ance in the ocean. Sharks feed on oth­er preda­tors in the ocean, which will then feed on small­er fish. If you re­move the apex preda­tors, you have an im­bal­ance in the food web.”

Dr Amon added, “By in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly killing sharks, we stand to dis­rupt the del­i­cate bal­ance of the ocean ecosys­tem. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing giv­en how much To­ba­go re­lies on the ocean. Sharks reg­u­late fish­eries by weed­ing out the sick, which ul­ti­mate­ly ben­e­fits na­ture. And that ben­e­fits us, and that ben­e­fits fish­er­men.”

She added that “these kinds of ir­re­spon­si­ble ac­tions, like culling sharks, put To­ba­go in a neg­a­tive spot­light on a glob­al stage,” ul­ti­mate­ly pre­vent­ing the is­land from tap­ping in­to eco­tourism that oc­curs in oth­er Caribbean na­tions like the Ba­hamas, where shark tourism gen­er­ates up to US$100 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.

How­ev­er, con­ser­va­tion­ists raise a more sig­nif­i­cant is­sue—sharks, par­tic­u­lar­ly en­dan­gered species like bull sharks, are not legal­ly pro­tect­ed in T&T, like the Scar­let Ibis or the Leatherback Tur­tles.

Manette ex­plained, “If we con­tin­ue to go out and hunt them, we are fur­ther cut­ting down the pop­u­la­tion that should be left there to con­tin­ue re­pro­duc­ing. Be­cause we don’t have that le­gal pro­tec­tion, the THA can­not come out and say stop killing the sharks, or stop hunt­ing the sharks be­cause it’s le­gal.”

In a re­lease, the THA said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to the con­ser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of its ma­rine re­sources, in­clud­ing sharks, through var­i­ous na­tion­al laws and in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tions. The Fish­eries Act, En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act, and Con­ser­va­tion of Wildlife Act all pro­vide a frame­work for man­ag­ing and safe­guard­ing our ma­rine wildlife.”

How­ev­er, Manette said, “Un­less we put some kind of man­age­ment in place to en­sure that they re­main in our oceans, then soon­er or lat­er, we may find our­selves with­out them.”

While sharks are dan­ger­ous crea­tures, Dr Amon said, “Sharks are an­i­mals that are wor­thy of re­spect, just like any oth­er liv­ing crea­ture just like us. We re­al­ly need to do bet­ter than we do.”

IUCN Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus for Shark Species in T&T’s Wa­ters

Crit­i­cal­ly En­dan­gered: 11

En­dan­gered: 20

Vul­ner­a­ble: 17

Near Threat­ened: 15

Least Con­cern: 30

Da­ta De­fi­cient: 2