In a letter published as a full-page ad in Spanish-language daily La Nación on Monday, conservation group Sharkproject International announced the nomination of President Luis Guillermo Solís for the 2016 Shark Enemy of the Year award.
Campaign backers hope a speedboat will help park rangers better protect the island against illegal fishing. Donations can be made through text message, at banks and supermarkets, and at special collection events.
Last Wednesday, inspectors from the National Animal Health Service discovered shark fins from protected species among air cargo being exported to Hong Kong. Among the fins were species including the oceanic whitetip shark (Carcharhinus longimanus) and several types of hammerheads (Sphyrna).
This case just keeps getting more bizarre by the minute. Now taxpayers will have to foot the bill for 650 shark fins seized from a finning boat in 2011, as well as the defendant's legal fees. So ordered Puntarenas Judge Franklin Lara.
Kathy Tseng, a Taiwanese-Costa Rican businesswoman, was absolved Monday in a Puntarenas court on charges of illegally landing 652 shark fins on a Costa Rican dock in 2011. According to prosecutors and ocean conservation groups, the landmark ruling by a Puntarenas judge has opened multiple loopholes for finners looking to skirt the law.
At least 40 sharks were killed by an illegal shark-finning boat detained off the shores of Golfito in Costa Rica's South Pacific. The boat was discovered during a two-day Coast Guard operation on Sunday and Monday.
The case started in 2011, when a boat belonging to the case’s defendant, Taiwanese-Costa Rican Kathy Tseng Chang, docked in Puntarenas, on Costa Rica's central Pacific coast. Fishermen on Tseng’s boat had allegedly carved out all of the meat, bones and innards of 36 sharks, leaving only the spinal column with the fins attached by strips of skin.
Costa Rica’s illegal gold mining problem is no longer confined to the long-running Crucitas debate, the Colegio de Geólogos de Costa Rica warned, calling...
