• Researchers began work in February between the Galapagos Islands and Cocos Island.
• The project is part of the efforts of the PACIFICO Platform to facilitate decision making by governments of the region, with the aim of protecting marine-coastal resources.

February 2017. How many hammerhead sharks survive in the waters of the Pacific, threatened by unsustainable fishing? That is the question the scientists of the MigraMar network will have to answer.

The study, “Determining the Size of the Hammerhead Shark Population in the Protected Marine Areas of the Tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean,” is being carried out thanks to the donation of US$20,000 (about 11 million colons) by PACIFICO, a coordination platform for the financial stability of the Eastern Tropical Pacific, made up of four environmental funds in Panama, Colombia and Costa Rica.

“One of the efforts we make from the PACIFICO Platform, in alliance with the MigraMar network of scientists, is to generate data required by decision makers to promote the sustainable use of marine-coastal resources in the Tropical Eastern Central Pacific,” said Zdenka Piskulich, executive director of the Forever Costa Rica Association.

“To achieve this goal, in 2016, PACIFICO facilitated a dialog between government authorities across CMAR and researchers in the region to build a research strategy to identify the main information gaps for promoting effective measures for use and conservation in this unique region of the world,” she continued.

The strategy establishes research priorities to promote greater management effectiveness of the protected areas, spatial planning of activities and sustainable use of marine-coastal resources, and it also addresses learning about the impact of invasive species and the effects of climate change on biodiversity in the region. Additionally, it proposes creation of a regional information system to link the generation of new data with existing databases.

“We are united by a sea that has similarities not only in socioeconomic aspects but also biological ones. Studies exist showing clear evidence of the connectivity of various highly migratory species, such as sharks, turtles and whales, among others; therefore, our countries must join forces to work for conservation and good use of these resources,” said Eduardo Espinoza of the Marine Ecosystem Monitoring Program of Galapagos National Park, Ministry of the Environment in Ecuador.

An example of the type of research that will foster this strategy is the shark study begun in February 2017 in the marine corridor that links the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) with Cocos Island (Costa Rica). In it, the MigraMar researchers, coming from England, Mexico, Ecuador, United States, Colombia, Australia and Costa Rica, made a two-week trip to the north of the Galapagos Marine Reserve, on Darwin Island; there they installed sensors on 14 sharks in order to monitor their movements during the coming months.

The monitoring will be through a new technique that combines the use of acoustic sensors, already installed at the regional level in the Tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean, with visual censuses (diving).

The expedition also trained marine biologists in the region on the use of the technological tools for monitoring species.