Indigenous fishers rethink shark hunting & protect species on Colombia’s coast

In La Guajira, Colombia, Wayuu fisher Wilfrido Arends now helps researchers from Proyecto Puyuii measure and sample sharks his community once hunted freely, part of an effort to document largely unstudied shark populations along the coast.

A 2021 law banned shark and ray fishing in Colombia, later revised in 2024 to permit incidental bycatch of 15 species, but shark meat remains a dietary staple for food-insecure Wayuu communities. Arends and about 17 of Punta Gallinas's 20 boats have shifted away from shark-directed longline fishing toward larger-mesh nets that reduce bycatch.

Researchers warn that even subsistence hunting, absent additional data, could strain shark populations the way overconsumption emptied the area of sea turtles. The project's pitch to fishers is blunt: make sharks worth more alive, through tourism or research payments, than dead.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.