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Costa Rica’s National Fisheries Institute (INCOPESCA) has created a new loophole for landing shark fins by allowing foreign vessels to completely cut off shark fins and then land the fins tied onto shark bodies, instead of attached in natural form.
The new Costa Rican Fishery Law, passed April 25, 2005, requires shark fins to be landed attached to their respective bodies. INCOPESCA’s policy of allowing fins to be completely cut off makes it impossible to guarantee that the fins which are tied onto a body are its respective fins, as the law requires.
There are numerous problems associated with this policy, which make the New Fishery Law impossible to apply:
• It allows vessels to very easily circumvent the law by tying extra fins onto each body allowing shark finning.
June 22, 2005 – San Jose, Costa RicaCosta Rica’s National Fisheries Institute (INCOPESCA) has created a new loophole for landing shark fins by allowing foreign vessels to completely cut off shark fins and then land the fins tied onto shark bodies, instead of attached in natural form. The new Costa Rican Fishery Law, passed April 25, 2005, requires shark fins to be landed attached to their respective bodies. INCOPESCA’s policy of allowing fins to be completely cut off makes it impossible to guarantee that the fins which are tied onto a body are its respective fins, as the law requires. There are numerous problems associated with this policy, which make the New Fishery Law impossible to apply: • It allows vessels to very easily circumvent the law by tying extra fins onto each body allowing shark finning.
• It makes at sea inspections impossible. With fins and bodies separate, an inspector inspecting at sea will have no way to ensure that shark finning has not occurred.
• It makes dockside inspections virtually impossible. Landing fins tied on means that inspectors must count every fin to make sure extra fins are not tied on. With individual vessels landing nearly 7000 sharks in one landing, counting all the fins can take days.
• It makes species identification impossible. Once fins are completely removed from bodies, accurate species identification can only be done with extremely expensive DNA tests. Species identification is imperative for evaluating the status and health of shark populations and creating policies for shark management.
“Just when Costa Rica was celebrating the passage of our new Fishery Law, INCOPESCA creates a loophole that nullifies the Law and perpetuates shark finning,” states Randall Arauz, President of PRETOMA. “Sadly, INCOPESCA’s long history of creating loopholes, has earned Costa Rica the reputation as a world renowned shark finning country.”