PRETOMA (Programa Restauración de Tortugas Marinas) was first pointed toward the issue of shark finning, albeit very indirectly, while working with Costa Rican commercial shrimp fishermen in the late 1990s to mitigate the impacts of fishing operations on sea turtles.  The shrimp fishermen told PRETOMA that not only were sea turtles dying in shrimp nets, but the longline fishing operations were killing thousands of sea turtles as well. 

Looking into the issue, it became clear that hundreds of foreign industrial longline vessels, much larger than most national vessels, were landing at Costa Rican Pacific ports, the vast majority in Puntarenas.  These vessels have been fishing in the region (eastern Pacific) for at least 20 years and in general claim to be targeting tuna; however, when one examines cargo declarations of these vessels (mostly from TAIWAN) landing in Puntarenas, the majority of products landed are shark products.  Given the massive demand for shark fins in Asian markets, the fact that shark fins fetch prices up to $70/kg (100 times higher than prices of shark meat) and the extremely lucrative nature of the shark fin trade, PRETOMA began investigating what exactly these vessels were landing. 

Logic suggested that these vessels would be landing shark fins rather than shark meat, and as such, be practicing the wasteful and unsustainable “shark finning”, when fishermen cut off the fins and discard the shark carcasses while at sea in order to save space in the vessel hold for the valuable fins.  These vessels are longliners, and run monofilament lines up to 100 miles in length behind the boat with up to 8000 baited hooks set on each line.  They the claim to be targeting tuna, however, sharks, endangered sea turtles and marine mammals and sea birds all get hooked on the lines.  A study by PRETOMA, recently presented for publication, suggests that relative abundance of sharks in Costa Rican waters has declined by 60% in the last 10 years.