For two consecutive moons, fisherfolk from Placencia and other areas down south who are licensed to fish at Gladden Spit at this time of year have been feeling the agony, as bull sharks are feasting off 80% of the snappers they hook. 66-year-old Steve Young, who has been fishing for snappers at this time of year since he was thirteen years old, says they have never experienced a season as bad as this one.

Young says that if they hook ten snappers, they’re lucky if they land two, if they are one- or two- pounders which they can haul up quickly. Hook a bake-sized snapper, a ten- or fifteen-pounder, and you’re lucky if you get back your hook, Young says.

Gladden Spit is a marine reserve, and fishermen have to acquire a three-month permit once yearly to fish there. Young says April was an economic disaster, and May was too. June is their last hope to make some money, and he and his colleagues are at this time getting their gears ready for when the moon is full in the next few days. But if the protected bull sharks return for easy pickings, stealing fish off fisherfolk’s hooks, the entire season will be a bust.

There is a clear solution to dealing with these bull sharks — catch them and take them to market, but as long as they remain inside the marine reserve, they are untouchable. According to Shark Angels, at the website sharkangels.org, we are a signatory to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and while we only have a ban on fishing for nurse and whale sharks, all sharks are protected when they are inside a marine reserve.

Shark Angels says we need more protection for sharks because “studies have shown that the number of sharks in Belize has declined dramatically over the past three decades.” The organization says “conservationists are finding support from the Belize Game Fishing Association in advocating for a ban on gill nets, long lines and shark fishing” because they recognize the commercial value of living sharks and “the tragic impact on the Belizean reefs with the loss of the eco-system’s vital apex predators.” Shark Angels says the “equally vocal Shark Fishers Association…are concerned that a gill net ban would threaten their livelihood.”

Belize now has a ban on gill net use, and Young says it’s a piece of equipment he gave up many years ago, after he found a dead dolphin in his net. But he does not support the protection of bull sharks that are robbing the snappers just about as fast as they hook them. We have to believe that Mr. Young and his colleagues are not alone. Those sharks at Gladden Spit need to be taught a lesson. They will have to feel some pain.