Companies caught blast fishing in Chile face fines and even prison. But that hasn’t stopped mass, brutal killings of sea lions, penguins and cormorants off the coast of Punta de Choros.
Last month beaches in the area were littered with bodies of marine animals that had suffered multiple abrasions, fractured skulls and missing rib cages. Days earlier, fishing boats were sighted off the coast using dynamite to kill fish.
Sadly, this is not the first such incident at Punta de Choros. In April and May of last year 350 cormorants and more than 80 sea lions washed up on the beach.
Though authorities are investigating the killings, more action is needed to stop these massacres. The marine conservation group Oceana says the 175-mile coastline should be made a Marine and Coastal Protected Area (AMCP).
Tell Chile to designate this area an AMCP and protect Punta de Choros marine life from blast fishing.
We, the undersigned, join Oceana in its request to make the Punta de Choros coastline a Marine and Coastal Protected Area (AMCP).
Oceana has been pushing for the protection of the coastline for several years and in 2010 filed a proposal in cooperation with scientists at Universida Catolica and The Centre for Advanced Studies in Dry Areas to try to make it happen, but plans to build a thermoelectric power plant in the area interfered.
Even though the area already has two marine reserves, Oceana says the Punta de Choros ecosystem is much larger and is not sufficiently protected from the kind of threats that have recently killed marine animals.
Apparently the laws and even stiff penalties for blast fishing have not been sufficient enough to stop these killings, and more is needed.
We ask the Chilean government to take Oceana’s petition seriously and do what is needed to protect Punta de Choros marine life from blast fishing.
