Panama looks to science, fishers, and the law to protect its sharks and rays

PUERTO CAIMITO, Panama — It’s a late April morning and the Tabor, an industrial fishing boat, is sailing around Chepillo Island in Panama Bay. Under the eyes of the crew, Yehudi Rodríguez, a marine biologist specializing in sharks, and sailor Joel Cordoba free a large black devil ray from a purse seine net and launch it back into the water.

As they work with the biologist, the sailors, around a dozen of them, joke among themselves. Tabor is part of the Promarina S.A. fleet, a Panamanian company that produces fish oil and fish meal, authorized to catch only small open-ocean fish, or pelagics, such as sardines and herrings.

Every two weeks, Rodríguez, a professor of biology at the University of Panama and director of the Shark Defenders NGO, analyzes bycatch — marine species not targeted but accidentally caught by fishers — freeing sharks, rays, and other animals entangled in the purse seine nets of Promarina vessels.

“It’s an emotion to see a huge Mobula for the first time and liberate it in the ocean,” Rodríguez, 49, tells Mongabay after freeing the devil ray, which weighed an estimated 100 kilograms (220 pounds).

Just a few hours later, Hermes, 18, the youngest sailor on the crew and nicknamed Mbappé after the French football star, helps Rodríguez liberate another ray, both taking care to avoid being hit by the animal’s venomous barb.

Before returning an animal into the water, Rodríguez follows a short protocol:  she records the coordinates of the bycatch location, identifies the species, takes its measurements and a tissue sample, then tags it. But if the rescued animal is in extreme danger, the release is immediate.

Rodríguez has been working on this project for five years, during which nearly 407 individual animals, including sharks and rays, have been tagged.

Raising fishers’ awareness

In Panama, various initiatives are underway to help reduce the bycatch of sharks and rays, led by biologists such as Rodríguez, as well as NGOs, politicians, and even local restaurants. Although national data on shark and ray bycatch and populations is lacking, experts say the illegal export of fins to Asia and the domestic consumption of shark meat call for a boost in conservation.

To help with conservation, many industrial fishing vessels now have biologists on board who train the crew on how to free marine animals accidentally caught in nets and to collect scientific data.

“So far, we detected a low bycatch presence in purse seine net fisheries,” Rodríguez says. “Overall, we observed an important collaboration with sailors to free marine fauna entangled: it is key to raise awareness.”

As she speaks, Rodríguez plays videos showing sailors freeing dolphins, sharks, and even crocodiles from nets when she wasn’t on board.

​“We plan to expand marine biologists’ presence on our fleet to train the sailors to observe purse seine nets and liberate accidental marine animals caught,” José Antonio Dominguez Diaz, a Promarina fleet maintenance manager, tells Mongabay on board the Tabor.

“In this way, we maintain the bycatch rate at 1.2%,” he adds. “The international sustainability certification Marine Trust requires us to remain under the 5%.”

The Panama Aquatic Resources Authority (ARAP) and NGOs such as CeDePesca run conservation projects that deploy biologists to fishing vessels. And since 2022, Rodríguez herself has involved 15 marine biology students in her conservation work.

Bycatch and illegal trade on the rise

In Panama, fishing is a major economic engine. In 2024, the country’s fish exports were valued at $272.9 million, according to ARAP. But bycatch remains an issue. According to Rodriguez, sharks make up between 30 and 60% of the bycatch in artisanal fishing using gill nets. She says that about 95% of that is represented by newborn and juvenile scalloped hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini).

Across Panamanian society, efforts are underway to find solutions.

“To improve shark and ray protection against bycatch, it is urgently needed to collect scientific data on their populations, now lacking in the country,” Rodríguez says. “We need funds to realize studies on the breeding sites and listen to the fishers to find practical solutions. Indeed, sailors recognize the importance of ongoing bycatch training.”

Rodríguez has been researching sharks for 25 years, a decision she says she reached when she was just 6 years old, listening to stories from her father, a freedive fisher. In 2017, she and three students founded the NGO Shark Defenders to protect the local shark population. Her work there focuses on studying the breeding sites of species like the critically endangered scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini) in Punta Chame, on Panama’s Pacific coast.

For some fishers, such as Tabor captain Luis Alcides Ortega, 58, bycatch is difficult problem to tackle.

“When I started sailing in 1985, we saw sharks very often all around, such as hammerhead sharks in Darién waters,” he tells Mongabay. “Now it’s not so common. Bycatch is a huge problem. To me, the solution is to train sailors to liberate animals from the nets, as we are doing.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by crewmate Joel Cordoba, 45, who’s been sailing for 30 years. “First, I was trained in 2015 on bycatch and continued my conservation studies in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina,” Cordoba says. “The most impactful liberation was of a few crocodiles caught in the nets: a very dangerous situation for us,” he adds.

As a fisher, he says, he recognizes the importance of preserving sharks for the marine ecosystem but also for the fishing business. “In fact, sardines and herrings are aggregated by predators’ circular swimming movements, made by sharks, among others,” Cordoba says.

Legal solutions under discussion

In Panama, shark and ray protection is currently a focus of a national debate.

“The incidental catch in Panama varies depending on the fishing gear used, the fishing grounds, and the time of year,” says Juan Manuel Posada López, regional science manager with the MarViva Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the sustainable use of coastal and marine resources in the eastern tropical Pacific.

“Reducing bycatch requires the promotion of more selective fishing gear, active participation from the fishing sector, and stronger government capacity for data collection, monitoring, and enforcement,” Posada López adds.

The Panamanian government is discussing a bill that would amend and repeal existing legal provisions in an effort to restore and conserve shark and ray populations.

Walkiria Chandler, the MP backing the bill, says it would ban targeted shark and ray fishing, as well as imports of shark and ray meat and their byproducts. It would also require fins to remain naturally attached to the body until landing — a key safeguard for traceability and against finning — tighten penalties, and integrate catch and violation data into the National Fisheries Information and Statistics System.

Chandler tells Mongabay in a text message that the measures would allow Panama to fulfill its international obligations and reduce the risk of escalated sanctions from the European Union for illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. In 2019, the EU issued a “yellow card” against Panama, a formal warning for failing to adequately address IUU fishing, which puts the country at risk of an outright ban on exporting fisheries products to the EU market.

“With regard to bycatch, the bill makes significant progress by mandating the immediate release of live specimens whenever their survival can be guaranteed, requiring that those that cannot be released, can be retained on board to allow for verification, and setting a maximum retention limit of 10% of the total gross weight of the catch, solely for crew consumption,” Chandler says.

Environmental activists and experts have weighed in on the various points in the bill, which is still in discussion in the legislature.

According to Rodríguez, the bill would mark a major step forward for shark conservation, but it still has significant weaknesses.

“Proposing a 10% shark bycatch limit is unrealistic,” she says, adding there needs to be a science-based threshold that accounts for factors such as the type of fishing gear used, the areas being fished, and the season. Without this, she says, “a real solution will never be reached.”

Shark-free seafood certification

Even if bycatch can be better regulated, there’s still the problem of illegal fishing and trafficking, highlighted by frequent seizures of fins from Panama, mostly to Asian countries, and the continued demand for shark meat for domestic consumption.

In January this year, Panama established an indefinite zero-export quota for all shark and ray species listed on CITES, the global wildlife trade convention. While the policy prohibits their export for commercial purposes, authorities continue to uncover illegal fin exports. The most recent case was the seizure of 162 kg (357 lb) of dried shark fins from Panama at the Hong Kong airport in April 2026. The fins were believed to come from protected species and had an estimated market value of about $280,000.

Panamanian biologists, including Yehudi Rodríguez, are involved in trying to identify the origins of fins recovered from such seizures, as part of efforts to understand the extent of this lucrative criminal business.

“Panama was supposed to have stopped exporting shark products [meat and fins] due to a ‘non-detrimental’ harvest ruling proposed in 2014,” Rodriguez says. “But according to data from the customs portal, we have observed that exports have continued all along.”

She says the domestic shark trade isn’t prohibited; small sharks caught as bycatch are used to make cazón empanadas, an iconic dish from Venezuela made with corn dough and filled with stewed shark meat, or for ceviche in restaurants. Panama City abounds with shops selling cazón empanadas.

Thirteen restaurants and companies involved in ceviche production are working to protect sharks as part of the Shark-Free Ceviche initiative by MarViva. Under the program, 51 outlets along Panama’s Pacific coast allow their products to undergo random DNA testing approximately twice a year, according to Posada López.

“The ‘Shark-Free Ceviche’ certification guarantees that the ceviche does not contain meat from sharks, rays, or other species not recommended for consumption,” he says. “Verification includes genetic testing … to confirm the species used, in addition to traceability requirements and good practice standards.”

Among the participating outlets is the waterfront restaurant Donde Luis, owned by 63-year-old Luis Gutierres.

“For more than 30 years I have always avoided using any species of sharks, [rays and skates] in my ceviche, and then I joined the MarViva certification,” Gutierres says. “If you ask me why I can get very emotional, it’s because my two sons asked me to avoid maltreating animals when they were kids. They love animals so much and inspired me to care for sharks. I hope joint efforts from different sectors can preserve these species for the future.”

Banner image: The marine biologist Yehudi Rodriguez analyzes dry shark fins seized from illegal traffic by Panamanian authorities. Image by Monica Pelliccia, Panama City, Apr 2026.​

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