[Animals] On the hunt for the shark that devoured a tourist on a Caribbean island: "It's going to kill us"

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The island of San Andrés, in the Colombian Caribbean, has been in shock since Friday. That was the day that in this region of calm seas and crystal clear waters, a tiger shark ended the life of an Italian tourist after severing a large part of his right thigh with a bite. The event, which authorities and experts insist on emphasizing as strange and unusual, has provoked reactions of all kinds, from those who have rushed to request that responsibilities for the presence of the shark in an area enabled for bathing be purged to those who, directly, They have decided to organize themselves to take justice into their own hands.

Although the tiger shark is a protected species in the country, several groups of islanders have been mobilizing in recent hours to organize raids with the sole objective of ending the life of the animal, a fact that has already been denounced by several environmental organizations that They work in San Andres.

 

Tiger shark hunting has been prohibited since 2008. The Raya Corporation, an organization that has been working for 20 years in defense of animal rights, has denounced a video where you can see a group of people trying to hunt sharks in the island beaches. The images show how, shortly after the hunt began, a ship from the National Navy arrives to try to dissuade them: "Personnel in the water are reminded that the species they are trying to hunt is a protected species," a man is heard saying. official.

"The shark is going to kill us," the islanders respond in the video. Fear has already claimed its first victim: this weekend this same group killed a nurse shark, a different species from the one that killed the tourist on Friday. The experts from the Coral Corporation, an environmental entity, clarify that this species does not represent any danger to man and flatly reject actions that, they remember, can bring sanctions.

In Colombia, illegal hunting and fishing are typified throughout the territory as a crime that carries fines of up to 35,000 current monthly legal minimum wages (the equivalent of more than 916,500 dollars) and imprisonment for 48 to 108 months.

 

Given these events, the government entity in charge of the area requested support from shark experts to carry out maneuvers to capture and relocate the specimens to a place far from the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve: “International support will arrive on the island between Monday and Tuesday. of San Andres. They will bring satellite devices that will be placed on the specimens to be able to monitor them, ”they say from the Coralina Corporation in a statement.

To help in these tasks, environmentalists ask not to continue throwing food remains into the sea, as it causes these types of animals, which are usually found in deep waters, to emerge to feed.

It is not the only habit of the inhabitants of the area that they recommend changing. For example, the Raya Corporation has also asked that people on the island who live from tourism stop feeding sharks with meat to attract them and that tourists can take videos and photos diving with them.

The practice, the specialists explain, is very common among the diving clubs that proliferate in the area and compete fiercely among themselves for the attention of tourists, and it accustoms the sharks to look for food in environments that they would naturally discard, such as the shallow waters where humans swim.

Juliana Barberí, director of the Raya Corporation, explains that they have received many complaints and reports of bad practices that have been carried out with tourism in order to be able to see sharks. "And now they are killing the sharks to protect their businesses and thus prevent tourists from being afraid to go to this part of the island to spend their vacations," she explains. Barberí criticizes the actions of the Government because the solution, she believes, is in no case to relocate or move these sharks anywhere. The home of sharks, she says, is the sea: "They want them close to use them for entertainment, but when they get too close, they want to kill them."

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https://elpais.com/internacional/2022-03-21/los-vecinos-se-organizan-para-dar-caza-al-tiburon-que-mato-a-un-turista-en-una-isla-del-caribe-nos-va-a-matar.html