Say Goodbye To That Bagre!

Bagre in Paloquemao market in Bogotá.

Bagre rayado, a staple of Colombian fish markets and restaurants, may soon be gone.

This fishseller in Paloquemao was aware of the bagre's
predicament.

According to the National University, bagre - as well as the pez jetón - are disappearing because of overfishing in the Rio Magdalena, as well as pollution and human alteration of its habitat.

Saving the bagre, also known as the pez gato or catfish, would be simple in principle, according to the researchers. Since a female can lay 800 eggs at a time, stopping fishing for just couple of years could allow the bagre to recover. But the small fishermen who catch bagre are undoubtedly poor people who can't afford to give up their livelihood for years. But that attitude could doom the bagre fishery forever.

The bagre didn't become a Colombian staple becuse of its
good looks.

Another possibility, it seems to me, would be to farm the bagre in captivity - if the fish will cooperate with that.

Bagre are also suffering other human impacts, including lead poisoning from mining and oil extraction, and pesticides from agriculture. That's yet another reason to think twice before eating bagre.

Bagre, top, and pez jetón below.
(Image from the National University.)

Colombia has 1,435 known species of freshwater fish, but 81 of them are in danger of extinction. Undoubtedly, there are many more species to be found: In fact, university researchers recently discovered three new fish species in Antioquia. Most likely, humans are driving other species extinct even before scientists can identify them.

A Bogotá fish restaurant.

And fish are far from Colombia's only endangered animals. According to the recent book Grandes Felinos de Colombia, Colombia's jaguars, pumas and tigrillos are being devastated by habitat loss, illegal hunting and mercury poisoning. Conservationists dream of a multinational protected area to enable jaguar populations in Central America to breed with those in Colombia.

The jaguar, now endangered, has played an important cultural role here since pre-Columbian times. Here, a replica of a San Agustin sculpture portraying a figure with human and animal characteristics.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Ecocide in the Seas

Sharks slaughtered for their fins. 

The other day a group of Russian scuba divers dove into the water Colombia's Malpelo Island, off of its Pacific coast, to watch sharks.

Instead, the divers witnessed a horror scene: hundreds of dead or dying sharks lying on the sea floor with their fins chopped off. The animals had been massacred for the market for shark fin soup in China, where a kilo of dried fins can bring hundreds of dollars.

Apparently, while a Colombian coast guard ship was in drydock for repair, boats from Costa Rica snuck into Colombian waters and devastated the shark population around Malpelo Island, which is a national marine reserve.

Ironically, Costa Rica is famous as a natural playground. Colombian and Costa Rican authorities are now pursuing the illegal fishermen. But catching a few ships will help little against this massacre on the world's high seas, where no government has control.

Counting shark fins. 

Globally, some 73 million sharks are killed every year, many of them just for their fins. And that's driving many shark species toward extinction. In contrast to sharks' bad public image, they in reality attack few people and are crucial for supporting marine ecosystems. For example, in some places the elimination of sharks allows smaller fish to overpopulate and devastate shellfish populations.

Colombia has relatively strong laws against finning. But laws are one thing and the reality on the open sea is another: factory fishing boats can catch, kill and butcher hundreds of sharks in a day, dump the corpses back into the sea and then even transfer the fins to another ship.

Colombia is not innocent in this holocaust. I've seen shark fin soup on menus in Bogotá Chinese restaurants, altho it is possible that these were harvested 'sustainably' when the shark was fished for its meat.

More info at Shark Angels: http://www.sharkangels.org/

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

World Environment Day

Last supper? Plates of fish in La Nieves market. A recent study says that Colombia's marine fish populations are near collapse from overfishing. 

Today is World Environment Day, and the news isn't good. The production of climate change gases rose to record levels last year, despite the world's economic troubles.

Scientists predict that global warm will eliminate Colombia's high-elevation wetlands within a few decades - which will cause wrenching changes in the nation's water supply.

Abundance, but for how long?

More immediately, this story in El Tiempo reports that fish populations off of Colombia's Pacific Coast are near collapse. Overfishing is, tragically, a worldwide problem and a classic case of the 'tragedy of the commons.' Since most of the world's oceans are held in common and many marine creatures migrate from one region to another, it's in everybody's interest is to grab all they can, using destructive methods such as trawling - at least in the short term. Until nothing's left for anybody, and it's too late. 

Marine ecology suffers from being out of more of most of our sight, and therefore out of mind. As long as the markets remain full of fish and shrimp, we assume there's abundance. But those fish may be coming from further and further away, out of increasingly scarce populations.

El Tiempo reports that Colombia harvests some 100 tons of marine resources each year - and that consumption will double in the next 20 years. Where will those fish and shrimp come from? Perhaps from fish farms. More importantly, we should ask where the fish the Chinese and Indians will eat will come from in 20 years.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours