Information
STINAPA Bonaire has been working together with the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance, The Netherlands and the other Dutch islands since August 2015 to put an end to the slaughter of sharks in the Dutch Caribbean.
During the first year they have worked on making local communities aware of the sharks around the Caribbean island. In the summer of 2015, Bonaire became part of the Yarari Marine Mammal and Shark Sanctuary. Which means that all sharks and rays are now protected.
The second year they focused on forging ties with local fisherman. No fisherman or foreign fishing fleet can target sharks.
In 2017 and 2018, STINAPA started with doing research on sharks and rays in Bonaire’s nearshore waters. A part of this research is setting up the shark and ray sightings network.
Data of sharks and rays will be collected in different locations and at different times to find out which species of sharks frequent the waters around Bonaire. This is the part of the research we can help STINAPA with!
What can you do?
Are you passionate about these species and would you like to help out? Pass by any of our dive shops for more information on the monitoring. We will give you the data sheet so you can start shark monitoring yourself!
Logging your dive
During the monitoring, it is important that every dive is logged, even if there are no sightings of target species, so we get the most accurate data. Please record the location of the dive/snorkel, the date and the species sighted. If you have any extra information you would like to add, like time or depth, please feel free.
Species
SR = stingray
ER = spotted eagle ray
MR = manta ray
For large groupers we are mostly interested in:
GG = goliath grouper
NG = Nassau grouper
BG = black grouper
YFG = yellowfin grouper
YMG = yellow mouth grouper
TG = tiger grouper
MG = marbled grouper
Data Sheet
Please find the data sheet here in which all the information can be collected. The data sheets can be sent to monitoring@stinapa.org.