Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) is calling for urgent action and an investigation after a whale shark was found dead near the shore in Chaguaramas on Tuesday.
The animal was first spotted alive but visibly injured on Saturday, near Peake’s Mariner, Chaguaramas.
A video circulating on social media showed curious onlookers videotaping the fish, which later swam out into deeper waters.
Four days later, its lifeless body washed ashore and was discovered close to the Copa Cabana Hotel, in the area formerly known as The Cove, just before the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard base.
In a news release yesterday, the FFOS said the incident underscores the growing threats facing marine species in local waters.
It further called on the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Ministry of Planning and Development, and all relevant authorities to ensure a full necropsy is performed to determine the cause of death.
“Was it vessel strike, plastic ingestion, hydrocarbon contamination, or some other preventable cause? Without this knowledge, we cannot protect what remains of our marine biodiversity,” FFOS said.
The group said that continued inaction in the face of marine deaths will have long-term consequences not just for the environment but for livelihoods and food security.
“We must do better. Our silence and inaction are deadly. With each death, we are not only losing a species, we are losing a part of ourselves, our livelihoods, our food sources, and our future,” the group said.
“Our marine space is sacred, and unless we treat it as such, we will soon find ourselves not only poorer in biodiversity but poorer as a nation,” the FFOS added.
The whale shark is listed as endangered. Though harmless to humans, the slow-moving filter feeders are often injured or killed by large vessels or entangled in marine debris.
Meanwhile, FFOS corporate secretary Gary Aboud said that whale sharks were once abundant, but over time their numbers have been decimated due to starvation and many were killed.
He emphasised their importance to marine biodiversity. “We need to profile these whale sharks if we are to protect more species,” he said.