Sea Shepherd Eludes Angry Costa Rican Authorities

SANTA MONICA, California, May 21, 2002 (ENS) - Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson is on the run from Costa Rican authorities, making a hasty exit Monday from the country that just invited him in to help police poachers in the Cocos Island World Heritage Site. On the way to Cocos Island, Watson nabbed an illegal Costa Rican fishing boat, and his diligence has landed him in trouble.

Sea Shepherd Society ship the Farley Mowat (Photo by Isobel Alexander courtesy SSCS)

Watson and crew have been working with the Cocos Island park rangers to deter poachers since late April.

Costa Rica invited Watson to sign an agreement that would give the Sea Shepherd authority to patrol Cocos Island and intervene to halt any illegal fishing activities. Originally planned for finalization on April 30, the agreement has not yet been signed, but the illegal fishing is rampant, Watson says.

Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson (Photo © S.P. Lewis)

“There is out of control illegal fishing going on here. It is a raping and ravishing of this island that is going unchecked," he said.

The Farley Mowat returned to Puntarenas Monday morning with the understanding that Costa Rican officials had agreed to let Watson leave Costa Rica for the United States to attend previously scheduled speaking engagements. He then planned to re-enter the country to sign and fulfill the agreement.

But on Monday, Watson was advised by his attorney to leave Costa Rica at once. There have been no official charges against Watson or Sea Shepherd, but Watson was to be arrested Monday upon arriving in Puntarenas.

The trouble began on April 22, when on its way to Costa Rica, the Farley Mowat came across the Varadero I, a Costa Rican registered boat, off the coast of Guatemala, illegally fishing for sharks and laying miles of longline inside the coastal no take zone. Sea Shepherd stopped the activities and was escorting the boat to Guatemalan authorities, when the Guatemalan Coast Guard requested he release the boat.

On a tip from a Costa Rican conservationist Sea Shepherd crew documents a shark fin drying operation on a roof in Puntarenas (Photo by Isobel Alexander courtesy SSCS)

Speaking from the Sea Shepherd’s main office in Santa Monica, California, Pye said today she was informed Monday that one of the prosecutors "will not drop the case” against Watson. This prosecutor has "obtained permission to have him arrested and 'thrown in jail until they decided what to do with him,'" she said.

"We've uncovered a lot of illegal fishing in Costa Rican waters carried on by Taiwan, which is really imbedded in Costa Rica, Pye told ENS. "People didn't realize how much influence the Taiwanese had on local people," she said.

Hammerhead shark, Cocos Island (Photo courtesy UNESCO)

Watson founded the Sea Shepherd Society in 1979 in Vancouver, Canada after leaving Greenpeace where he was an early anti-whaling activist. He has become known around the world for his defense of marine creatures using bold means - ramming pirate whalers, painting seal pups, and confronting the authorities of whaling nations.

The Sea Shepherd has lent its ships and personnel to a number of governments that want to control poaching in their waters, most recently to the government of Ecuador to police the Galapagos Islands.

The Sea Shepherd Society still hopes to get an agreement signed with Costa Rica, Pye said. "We want to work to protect Cocos Island, it is getting destroyed by poaching longliners," she said. "We're not giving up."

Cocos Island National Park, located 550 kilometers off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997. The underwater world of the national park has become famous due to the attraction it holds for divers, who rate it as one of the best places in the world to view large deep ocean species such as sharks, rays, tuna and dolphins.

Related Links: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: http://www.seashepherd.org

Friends of Cocos Island Foundation: http://www.cocosisland.org/english/

UNESCO World Heritage Sites: http://whc.unesco.org/nwhc/pages/sites/main.htm