Poachers at Punta Sur

[mfpikeil]

I posted this on another thread, but I thought all the coz lovers would find it of interest:

And today we had a bitter sweet, but very exciting dive at Punta Sur. We were into the dive for about 10 minutes, at about 80 feet, when we came upon what appeared to be an anchor of a trot line hung in the reef. David followed the line, and soon came upon a hooked nurse shark, which was dead, the next hook held a nurse shark which was still alive. He was able to get close enough to free it by cutting the leader. The next two hooks had dead black tips on them. We were able to haul the black tips to the surface using the line. The line probably had more dead animals on it, but this was going on at 100' plus depths, and we had a couple of guys with deco problems, so we couldn't stick around that long. We got the two sharks into the boat - they were 3 footers, and David radioed the Park Police, who showed up very quickly. I thought we would be in for a bunch of interviews and an investigation, but all they did was get the basic info and take the sharks...it was kind of a relief... I thought we would be in for quit a grilling.

The truly sad part of this is that these were the resident sharks that everyone goes to see at Punta Sur. It was one of the most exciting and memorable dives of my life, but also one of the saddest... A real damn shame.

Kudos to David of Aldora Divers, our dm who handled a very hectic, potentially dangerous situation in a truly professional manner...It was quite a day!

 

[deeper thoughts]

What a disgrace. Thnx for the info

 

[Dive Choice Mexico]

I am reading this with tears in my eyes. It is hard to believe that people do this.

 

[cicopo]

Very sad to read this and I'm sure glad that you didn't have the issues one expects when reporting it to the authorities. You never know how something like that might go, but it was the right thing to do. Thanks for taking the time to inform us.

Larry

 

[PARADISE HUNTER]

Sad dive! Sorry to hear about your experience.

I guess I don't see the concerns that a couple posters have with reporting a poaching incident. I wouldn't think twice about it.

PH

 

[scubawife]

Excellent job on the DM reporting it and the group taking the time and effort to take a closer look at the line AND bring up some evidence. I wouldn't be surprised if the park send out divers to take a further look down the line, and/or will be having a boat handy watching to see who comes back to retrieve their catch. I'll be watching the online papers for a story on the guys getting caught!

 

[booth22]

Dove the Punta Sur area this morning and found more lines/hooks. Two sections of line with plenty of hooks, thankfully nothing had been caught. And I'll have to double check on the camera later, but I'm pretty sure we saw the nurse shark that was cut free- appeared to have a line coming from his mouth while he was lying under a cut in the reef...

 

[Darol]

Sorry, but very very hard to believe.

 

[vladimir]

Sadly, it's not hard to believe at all. I have seen shark carcasses washed up on the beach in Derawan, Indonesia, with no fins. I blame Richard Nixon. No joke. If he hadn't coaxed the Chinese out of their shell 40 years ago, they wouldn't be dropping $100 a bowl on shark's fin soup. If there's a demand, there's a price where somebody will fill it--at least as long as there are sharks remaining.

 

[mfpikeil]

I'm not sure how to post pictures to the thread, so I hope these pictures offer some proof. If they don't appear here, I will try to figure out how to make it work. Sorry, I'm not very good at this posting stuff, so bear with me....There is also some video that I will try to get up if I can figure out how to do it.

Oops, I guess it didn't work... I will try to get this figured out - sorry.