The appearance of two fishing boats in the Puntarenas estuary has led a Costa Rican ocean conservation advocate to ask authorities for more information about the vessels, their owners and why they entered the area. Jorge Serendero Hülssner, director of Fundación For the Oceans and a member of the Marine Commission of the Presidential Council on the Ocean, raised the concern in a recent opinion column.
Serendero described the two boats as being of Chinese origin and identified one as TUNG HAI 168. However, he did not accuse either vessel of illegal fishing or any other crime. Instead, he asked authorities to clarify who owns and operates the boats, where they came from, what permission they had to enter the estuary and whether they had previously fished or transferred catches elsewhere in the region.
Public vessel-tracking information reviewed after the alert adds an important complication. Global Fishing Watch and commercial tracking services list TUNG HAI 168 as operating under the Costa Rican flag, not the Chinese flag. The vessel is approximately 24 meters (79 feet) long.
Those databases do not publicly identify its owner or explain why it carries a Chinese name. A boat’s name, appearance or country of construction does not prove its current nationality or ownership. The second vessel mentioned by Serendero was not identified in the column.
The available information therefore does not establish that TUNG HAI 168 is a foreign vessel. It also does not answer whether the boat had the necessary fishing, port or navigation permits. The location has added to the calls for an official explanation. The Puntarenas estuary is part of a protected wetland created in 2001 and expanded in 2005 and 2006.
The area includes mangroves, mudflats and important breeding grounds for fish and other wildlife. Puntarenas is also the legal headquarters of the Costa Rican Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute (INCOPESCA), which regulates the country’s fishing industry.
Serendero used the sighting to raise a wider concern about Costa Rica’s ability to monitor fishing activity across its waters. Large fishing operations can remain at sea for months with help from fuel, supply and refrigerated cargo vessels. Some transfer their catch to other ships without returning to port, a practice known as transshipment.
Transshipment is not automatically illegal, however, international fisheries organizations warn that weak oversight can make it harder to determine where fish were caught and whether fishing rules were followed. The concern also extends beyond Costa Rica. Isla del Coco forms part of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor, known as CMAR. Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador created the regional initiative to coordinate protection of connected marine areas that include Cocos, Coiba, Malpelo, Gorgona and the Galápagos Islands.
Sharks, tuna, turtles, rays and whales regularly move between these areas, meaning fishing or environmental damage in one part of the region can affect marine life elsewhere. Costa Rica has improved some of its monitoring tools and shares tracking information for Costa Rican fishing vessels with Global Fishing Watch, while radar systems help authorities monitor waters around Isla del Coco. Those systems, however, do not by themselves establish who owns the two boats seen in Puntarenas or what authorization they had.
No public response addressing the specific vessels could be located from INCOPESCA or the National Coast Guard as of today. The central question remains straightforward: whether Costa Rican authorities can identify the boats, their operators and the reason they were inside the Puntarenas estuary.
