Scubaism

Five men were arrested Thursday for illegal international trade of exotic skins and parts manufactured from sea turtles and other protected species of wildlife.

The two indictments detail 54 conspiracy, smuggling and money-laundering charges. The defendants are accused of smuggling 25 separate shipments of wildlife skins and products between Mexico and the United States between early 2005 and today. The shipments contained more than 700 tanned skins of sea turtle, caiman, python and other protected species, and well over 100 items, such as boots, belts and wallets, manufactured from the skins of those species.

The indictments allege that nearly $60,000 was paid to the Mexican suppliers and of the illegal skins and products, in addition to “crossing fees” paid to the alleged smugglers.

Arrested in Denver were Carlos Leal Barragan, of Guzman, Jalisco, Mexico; and Esteban Lopez Estrada and Martin Villegas Terrones, both of Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico. The other two men are Texas residents. Jorge Caraveo, of El Paso, Texas, was arrested in that city, and Oscar Cueva, of McAllen, Texas, was arrested there.

Each conspiracy count in the indictments carries a maximum penalty of five years incarceration and $250,000 in fines. Each smuggling and money laundering count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years incarceration and $500,000 in fines.

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A California gray whale that was harpooned and shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state has died, officials said. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning. A preliminary report said the whale was shot with a .50-caliber machine gun, Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said.

Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said the whale disappeared beneath the surface in the evening, dragging buoys that had been attached to the harpoon, and did not resurface. A biologist working for the Makah Indian tribe declared it dead, Eggert said.

Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, Oswell said. The suspects could face civil penalties of up to $20,000 each and up to a year in jail, said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Criminal prosecution under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act is rare, Gorman noted. “While it remains an option, I think we have to finish our investigation before we make any kind of call like that,” Gorman told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale, which was shot about a mile east of Neah Bay in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The whale had begun heading to sea Saturday afternoon, Oswell said.

Although the tribe has subsistence fishing rights to kill whales, Oswell said preliminary information indicates the whale may have been shot illegally. “We allow native hunts for cultural purposes. However, this does not appear to be of that nature so far,” he said.

The Makah Indian Tribe’s whaling commission said it did not authorize the killing.

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Civilised countries around the world have laws against the harassment of marine life. But it seems in Singapore, there is no such law.

In the Underwater World aquarium on Sentosa island in Singapore, there is a “Touch Pool” where visitors are encouraged to dip their hands inside “for some ‘hands on’ experience with starfish, stingrays and if you dare, baby sharks“.

Every day the stingrays and sharks have to swim for the lives with thousands of hands trying to catch or touch them. The stress alone could kill them and definitely shorten their lives, but the management of Underwater World seem oblivious to that.

There are even pufferfish which inflate on stress. And they can inflate only a few times in their lives because of the strain that engulfing water puts on their bodies. One wonders how many wild pufferfish that they have to buy every month to replace the ones that were killed from the strain.

To say nothing of the danger of putting your hand on a stingray which can whip its tail and slice off a finger or two when it senses danger.

Routinely, children are seen lifting the sea stars and sea cucumbers out of the pool, starving them of water. And when they are done with them, the sea creatures are not gently put back where they were taken from, but carelessly thrown back into the pool.

If you visit Singapore, tell other people about the Touch Pool. Stop visitors from harassing the marine life. Please link to this article.

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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has charged administrators of Florida’s Gulfarium with illegally purchasing fish. The charges, four separate counts of buying fish without a wholesale license, are misdemeanors. However, if the marine animal park is found guilty, it could lose its state license that allows it to display animals such as alligators and river otters, said FWC Capt. Leroy Alderson.

Okaloosa County Court Judge Patricia Grinsted signed off on a summons late Tuesday afternoon. They stem from allegations the Gulfarium was illegally buying fish it used in aquarium displays, said former dolphin trainer Russ Rector. Investigators and the state attorney’s office in Okaloosa County confirmed Rector’s assessment of the charges. Court documents related to the charges were not available Wednesday.

“It proves clearly the Gulfarium has nothing to do with conservation,” said Rector, a South Florida resident who has vowed to force the beleaguered and aging facility to close. “They are not conserving our oceans, they are depleting them.” Rector said buying display fish in the manner undertaken by Gulfarium also “promotes a black market in display fish.”

Neither Gulfarium General Manager Don Abrams nor former curator Greg Siebenaler returned phone calls seeking comment on the charges.

The Gulfarium came under scrutiny following an inspection in May. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture joined the FWC on the surprise visit. Inspectors found that the facility had failed to report many — an amended inventory indicates at least 28 — animal deaths since the time such reports became required in 1994.

They also discovered that a dolphin named Prince had appeared on a federal inventory kept by the Fisheries Service as Pearl. Prince, a male dolphin, had existed as Pearl on the Marine Mammal Inventory from the time it was captured in 1985 until its death following Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Abrams said at the time that the Gulfarium had received “capture” permits for two female dolphins, but found only one “viable specimen.” That dolphin, a male, was named Pearl, but later renamed.

A report issued by the USDA investigators well after the inspection also cited employee negligence as the cause of the death of Daphne, one of two dolphins that died at the Gulfarium this year.

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Police arrested six people suspected of trying to illegally sell more than 52,000 sea turtle eggs in southern Mexico, authorities said Saturday. The five men and one woman were caught Friday transporting the eggs in dozens of plastic bags in the southern town of San Pedro Huamelula, Mexico’s Public Security Department said in a news release. The department did not release any further information.

Mexico is a major nesting area for several species of sea turtles, which are endangered and protected by law. Harvesting or selling their eggs is punishable by up to nine years in prison and fines. Still, officials seize thousands of turtle eggs at markets each year in Mexico, where they are considered a delicacy.

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Dozens of walrus carcasses missing their heads and valuable tusks have been discovered on western Alaska beaches in recent weeks, and federal wildlife authorities are trying to figure out whether they were killed illegally.

Investigators flying over Norton Sound beaches east of Nome counted 79 walrus carcasses in about a 40-mile stretch between Elim and Unalakleet, said Steve Oberholtzer, a special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage. Large numbers of headless walruses have washed ashore in the area before, but this is the most investigators have seen in at least 10 years, Oberholtzer said.

Only Alaska Natives can legally hunt walruses for subsistence, but they must salvage a “substantial portion” of the animal, including the heart, liver, flippers and some red meat. Headless walrus carcasses immediately raise questions about poaching. But the investigation does not necessarily mean anyone broke the law, Oberholtzer said.

Natives value walruses as a source of subsistence meat, said Vera Metcalf, head of the Eskimo Walrus Commission in Nome. The group works with the government to manage walrus populations and promote proper harvests. The tusks provide an important source of income in many cash-strapped villages for artists who sell ivory handicrafts, she said.

Natives shooting walruses usually follow the law, but not always, Oberholtzer said. They’ve occasionally been prosecuted for killing the animals just for their tusks. Anyone — Native or not — can legally collect the tusks of dead walruses they’ve found, but they must get a permit from Fish and Wildlife within 30 days after the tusks are removed, Oberholtzer said.

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An Oslo court ordered the Norwegian government Friday to pay three deep sea divers a total of nearly 30 million kroner (US$5.1 million, €3.7 million) in compensation and interest for health problems associated with working in the offshore oil industry.The so-called pioneer divers from the early years of Norway’s offshore oil development, Magn Haakon Muledal, Angus Gunnar Kleppe, Dag Vilnes, won their suit against the government, claiming it knowingly risked their lives by sending them to extreme depths for profit.

A fourth diver, Asbjoern Joergensen, lost the case, formally brought against the Ministry of Labor and Social Inclusion.

Some divers complain of severe health consequences, including lung and brain damage. In December, a government survey said 20 percent of 139 divers active between 1965 and 1990 were on medical disability pensions.

When Norway, now one of the world’s major oil exporters, was first developing its North Sea fields in the 1970s and 1980s, divers were sent to extreme and sometimes experimental depths to maintain and install equipment.

In its 93-page ruling, the court said, “as a result of the oil adventure, Norway is one of the world’s richest countries” and the government, because of its strong role in developing the resources, has a responsibility to the divers for their injuries.

“A small group, about 400, of then strong, healthy young men took jobs as professional divers at the start of what we must call our oil fairy tale,” said the court. “Even though saturation divers had very good pay, the court finds that many paid a price they had not anticipated: their own health.”

It cited studies saying a disturbing number of those divers are now on disability pensions after their deep dives.

The plaintiffs said Norwegian officials accepted a maximum depth for dives of 400 meters (1,300 feet) until 2002, while the safe limit is now set at 180 meters (590 feet).

The court awards to the disabled divers, including interest, compensation and lost income, were 11.5 million kroner (US$1.98 million, €1.43 million) for Vilnes, 11.2 million kroner (US$1.93 million, €1.4 million) for Kleppe and 3.1 million (US$535,000, €387,000) for Muledal.

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Two submersed diver-training platforms at a popular beach north of Jeddah have been destroyed in an apparent act of vandalism that is believed to have been committed by a team of divers. Divers using underwater pipe-cutters reduced the 10-year-old scaffolding structures off Palm Beach (formerly Al-Nakheel Beach, north of Jeddah) to little more than piles of scrap metal.

The discovery came shortly after the wooden pier leading out to the platforms was found to have two six-meter sections smashed out of it. The submersed platforms, which were used as both training areas and for safety stops during decompression dives, were paid for by local sponsors and constructed by teams of local volunteers. Since the construction of these platforms, thousands of divers have learned their basic safety drills at this well-known privately-run resort.

The opinion of divers who inspected the sites, one at six meters in depth and the second at nine meters, is that this was an intentional act of sabotage. The ownership of the beach resort recently changed hands, and it had been closed down temporarily for renovations.

The divers interviewed estimate that, based on the number of pipes cut, the operation took a cumulative of 10 man-hours, underwater — the more divers used the less time it would have taken — and the team believes that this would have been a job for about four divers.

According to divers familiar with the facility, the crime occurred during a period of several days when the property was transferred to a new owner, Jamal Saga. During that time the beach was relatively unattended.

The dive platforms themselves, which were constructed in 1997, became mini manmade reefs with a whole community of fish — some of them rare and unusual species — and other reef-crawlers taking up residence underneath them. Lessons taking place on the platforms have been temporarily suspended as divers stopped to marvel at the occasional passing whale shark, manta ray, or sea turtle.

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With blood dripping from its fearsome teeth, the “Great White Shark” was quickly dubbed Britain’s very own “Jaws.” But Mr Keeble has now admitted the photo was taken in South Africa on a fishing trip - much to the annoyance of locals who earn their living from the tourist trade.

“I took the picture while I was on a fishing trip in Cape Town and just sent it in as a joke,” Mr Keeble told the Newquay Voice newspaper. “I didn’t expect anyone to take be daft enough to take it seriously.

“I can’t believe the story went so big in the first place. I didn’t even get any money out of it. If I’d have made a few quid then maybe I could have gone on another fishing trip to South Africa.”

The picture was carried on the front of the Voice’s rival, the Newquay Guardian, last Wednesday under the headline “Great White spotted in resort waters”. On the same day, a copy of the Newquay Guardian’s front page appeared in the Sun.

Before then, the Sun had run a series of stories claiming that a great white - or even two, a male and female - had been seen close to the popular resort of St Ives.

The Sun declined to comment today, but sources told the Guardian the shark editions had sold “like hot cakes”. The Newquay Guardian also enjoyed an increase in circulation, and Matt Dixon, the paper’s head of content, said copies had “flown off the shelves”.

He added that, as far as he was concerned, the story had not yet been proven to be a hoax, and said the paper had so far been unable to get back in touch with Mr Keeble.

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A 24-year-old fisherman was arrested in Newport Beach on Friday for allegedly stabbing a California sea lion repeatedly with a steak knife after the animal stole his bait. The sea lion, a six-foot female weighing about 150 pounds, was severely wounded and was later euthanized.

Hai Nguyen of Garden Grove, who was being held at Newport Beach Jail on $20,000 bail, is expected to be arraigned early next week on a charge of felony cruelty to animals. Authorities said the case also is being investigated by the U.S. attorney’s office for possible federal charges under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Police say Nguyen was fishing off Newport’s M Street pier about 12:30 p.m. when the sea lion apparently took the bait from his fishing pole. The fisherman became upset, they said, and stabbed the animal at least twice with a steak knife.

“It was close enough so he could just reach out and stab it in the water,” said Sgt. Evan Sailor, a police spokesman. “A number of people witnessed it and called police.” Nguyen was arrested without incident at the pier, Sailor said.

The wounded animal, meanwhile, was recovered by volunteers from the marine mammal center in Laguna Beach, who discovered that one of the knife wounds had pierced its heart. The sea lion was euthanized about 5 p.m.

Nguyen could face a $25,000 fine and up to a year in prison if convicted on the animal cruelty charge.

In addition, said Martina Sagapolu, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Commerce, a conviction on federal charges of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act could add $12,000 in civil penalties, criminal fines of up to $20,000 and additional jail time.

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