Poachers at Punta Sur

[Hockeynut]

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

Sorry, but very very hard to believe.

Hard to believe that poor people will do what they have to for survival?

I'm against it but geez people, this is not hard to believe at all.

 

[vladimir]

Hard to believe that poor people will do what they have to for survival?

I'm against it but geez people, this is not hard to believe at all.

Good point, Hockeynut. It is a deplorable act, but the people who are paying $100 for the shark's fin soup at Fook Lam Moon in Hong Kong, for example, are the real villains here--they're the ones with all the choices.

 

[DandyDon]

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.

You can host the pics at Photobucket, Tinypic.com, or a number of other sites, then use the IMG codes to post large pics. I think SB software now reduces them to around 700 or 800 wide.

Or you can make lower resolution copies on your hard drive to yield pics under 400 Kb each, then use Manage Attachments below a reply field to attach pics to appear in thumbnails. I use Microsoft Image Size Powertoy on my XP computer to reduce them to around 800 wide which lowers the resolution, or on Win-7 there are similar programs.

You want to email me the pics to post for you...???​

You can host the video at Vimeo.com for free. PM me for additional instructions.

 

[MMM]

Not the least bit hard to believe. Some time ago I posted about us encountering fishing boats at Punta Sur when we arrived to dive early in the a.m. It's a touchy issue as the dive boat captains and crew are friends and neighbors of the people fishing in the park.

 

[booth22]

I think this worked... Here is the nurse shark with the hook still in, he was relaxing in a swim-through close to where we removed the line. You can click the picture for a larger version... sorry about the quality!

 

[booth22]

Sorry, but very very hard to believe.

Even more hard to believe? Somebody actually thinking people would go on vacation and spend it making up stories about finding fish hooks on the reef, then taking the time to post them online when it didn't happen.

 

[sddiver]

Like MMM above when diving with early morning ops, ie Aldora, Martin ect, we would see fishing pangas in the southern reaches of the park most mornings. This has been going on for years. It's their country. How they choose to police the park and to what extent is up to them.

Rich

 

[5615mike]

Hey Don. Sorry we missed you this trip. We had great diving with Edgar and John met us again this trip. Very sorry to hear about this line that was found. It certainly does not surprise me as I have said for many years that while I had no proof of poaching in the park, I have seen boats offshore at night that I know were not night diving. I have seen it many times but most dont believe it. All you have to do is look for the life on the reef and it tells you something is wrong in that a "protected park" should have far more life on it than it does. Have a great trip and maybe we will see you in May.

 

[Pelagicsal]

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.

Go to imageshack.com. You can upload the photos or video there. It will give you a link to the images/video, or html to paste them into the thread.
It's very easy.... I promise!

 

[mfpikeil]

Okay, I hope this will work... here are some links to video of the dive at Punta Sur taken by a nice guy named Glenn, who had to really struggle to get the images. He burned a disc for me before we left. The first link is David of Aldora freeing the nurse shark, and the second is me and David at our safety stop, holding the dead Black Tips.

Yfrog Video : yfrog.com/mzdavidsavingnursesharz
Yfrog Video : yfrog.com/5ysafetystopwithsharksz

Seeing is believing... I also have some photos, but the video pretty much describes what went on.