Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
meat. Next to their small hut were improvised drying racks for strips
of shark meat that would be shipped to the mainland of Mexico. The
shark fins would be shipped to Asia. The smell of the drying shark meat
was almost overwhelming, but the tacos were surprisingly good, maybe
because we hadn't planned on staying out so long and we were starv-
ing by then.
Nightfall came and the tiburoneros set out in their panga to pull the
nets they had set not far from shore. It was one of those beautiful calm,
warm evenings that can be so magical in the Sea of Cortez. Not a breath
of wind could be felt, and the sounds of the fishermen singing and danc-
ing on the bottom of their boat came to us clearly across the mirror-
smooth water as they pulled their nets. Hearing such happy sounds,
we looked forward to seeing what kinds of sharks they had caught. They
returned to camp and told us there had been nothing in the nets.
That evening with the hospitable tiburoneros still haunts me. We
knew that even when fishing was good they were very poor and to catch
nothing must hurt, yet there they were singing and dancing as they
worked, knowing all along that they might end up with nothing. What
was the secret to their happiness? We wealthy Northerners, with all our
material possessions, would have been cursing our bad luck if we'd had
a night like they had.
This collecting trip was not a great success. We ended up with two
rather small bignose sharks that we brought back to Sea World. We'd
had three beautiful two-foot-long hammerheads in our holding pool,
but some kids saw them as great things to play with and killed them.
I'm sure they didn't mean to hurt them when they were grabbing their
tails and dorsal fins; they just didn't know how delicate they were.
Because of the poor results and the diā€¹cult logistics, this was our
last attempt to collect sharks in the Sea of Cortez. Although expensive,
it turned out to be more practical to collect on the East Coast of the
United States and transport the sharks across the country.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search