Costa Rica will have to better defend its hammerhead sharks. The country’s Constitutional Court has ordered the authorities to take measures to protect three species of these fish in serious danger of extinction, we learned on Tuesday from a judicial source.
The first chamber of the Constitutional Court on Monday ordered the “National Protection System to include the species of common hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna zygaena), scalloped sharks (Sphyrna lewini) and great hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna mokarran) on the list of species in danger of extinction”.
Shark fishing banned in Costa Rica
The judgment calls for “adopting all necessary and appropriate measures” to put an end to the capture, possession and marketing of these sharks. Two of the three species mentioned appear on the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in a situation of “critical risk” and with a “decreasing” population.
Costa Rica has off its coast in the Pacific Ocean the Maritime Reserve of Coco Island which is home to one of the highest populations of hammerhead sharks. The government had already banned the fishing of these cartilaginous skeleton fish in February.
The conference on the international trade in endangered species meeting in Panama in November took the decision to extend its protection to some fifty species of requiem sharks and hammerhead sharks threatened by the trafficking of shark fins, coveted for making soups in Asia. Requiem sharks and hammerhead sharks are the victims of more than half of the global shark fin trade, which represents more than 500 million dollars a year. Fins can be sold for up to $1,000 a kilo in the East Asian market, centered in Hong Kong.