Page 323 - Mexico Diving From the Caribbean to Pacific Isles

y 1993 there were two shrimpers haul- processors moved on to their next target sign: this fishery may never recover. And to

B ing fresh shark to Guaymas for process- and the 5 local pangas left found almost no make matters worse, hundreds of thousands
ing and several trucks were running carcass- sharks at all. This huge breeding ground for of other fish were senselessly wasted in the

es to the desert for burial. The bay, which sharks, which had survived for eons, was now netting process. What is done is done. What

often ran red with the blood of discarded gone, wiped out in just ten years. What hap- we must do now is make sure what happened

shark carcasses and the tons of fish they pened is simple: the fishing outstripped the to a vibrant fishery in San Francisquito Bay

didn’t want, became almost uninhabitable fishery’s ability to replenish itself. Someone isn’t repeated again somewhere else. That is

from the smell and the millions of flies the in authority should not only have noticed, what Sea Watch exists to do: to warn Mexico,

pollution attracted. The fishermen began but done something about it. The signs the United States and the world of the next

noticing by the end of 1993 the sharks be- were clear and the destruction complete. great impending slaughter, so that the next

ing caught were getting smaller and smaller, disaster of this magnitude can be stopped.
and by 1994 the boom was over, the boats

Swere bringing in only 2 or 3 small sharks a
Ftrip. The by-catch they discarded dead far
harks mature and reproduce slowly. or more information and to obtain addtional
Their reproductive strategy more closely information visit www.SeaWatch.org. Sup-
resembles that of large mammals than of

exceeded the sharks processed. The fishery other fish. The fishery was losing its new- port this organization and the wirk they are do-

was in total collapse. In 1995 the boats all ar- borns each season, plus an estimated 40% of ing to protect and replenish the Sea of Cortez.

rived expecting the sharks to be there. When all the sharks caught that decade were preg-

they realized there was nothing left, the big nant females. These facts are an ominous