\u201cThere are associations, groups that openly defend their right to fight cocks, even in Costa Rica,\u201d says Heidemeyer, who has been long involved in sea turtle research and founded Equipo Tora Carey, an organization devoted to coastal marine conservation. \u201cOf course it\u2019s illegal, but then they do it hidden.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hawksbill\u2019s beak-like mouth is also sold along the Costa Rican-Panamanian border for cockfights, according to Spanish publication El Pa\u00eds, which says owners put them on top of their birds\u2019 beaks.<\/p>\n
Fighting back against the trade<\/h2>\n
Most of Costa Rica\u2019s hawksbill spurs come into the country overland from Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south, Heidemeyer tells Mongabay.<\/p>\n
In an effort to crack down on cockfighting, Costa Rican authorities have seized hundreds of these spurs in recent years. In May 2024, a bust near the Nicaraguan border seized 29 hawksbill spurs, while a 2019 operation in Guanacaste province in northwestern Costa Rica confiscated 98 smuggled spikes.<\/p>\n However, this probably barely scratches the surface of the trade, Heidemeyer says. And though the government is cracking down on spurs and other cockfighting paraphernalia, \u201cnobody\u2019s really asking about the material of the spike that they\u2019re seeing,\u201d she says, noting that hawksbill shell is easily mistaken for plastic. An easy way to differentiate shell-derived products from plastic is to burn them: when lit, turtle shell smells like human hair burning, as it\u2019s made up of the same protein, keratin.<\/p>\n Didiher Chac\u00f3n, founder and director of the Latin American Sea Turtles Association (LAST), says his organization trains Costa Rican officers to help them identify hawksbill products. He and his team also work undercover, buying spurs and other products from sellers in order to build criminal cases they can present to authorities. They also monitor online social networks for posts selling hawksbill spurs and report them to get them removed.<\/p>\n Still, conservationists face huge hurdles. For instance, frequent officer turnover makes it difficult to ensure staff are adequately trained to identify hawksbill shells when they encounter them, Heidemeyer tells Mongabay.<\/p>\n \u201cOur system in customs is just looking for guns and drugs, not these product,\u201d Chac\u00f3n says. \u201cI think we need to work harder to try to train the mail officers and the customs police to stop these things.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts warn that these occasional confiscations don\u2019t address the root of the issue: the illegal harvest of hawksbills for their shells. Although the species is protected under CITES, the convention that regulates the international wildlife trade, that hasn\u2019t stopped poachers.<\/p>\n According to Chac\u00f3n, who has worked in sea turtle conservation for more than three decades, neighboring Nicaragua is a hotspot for trading hawksbill products.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are not in the most important international agreements like the Inter-American Convention [for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles],\u201d he says.<\/p>\n And while the situation has improved in countries like Colombia and the Dominican Republic, there\u2019s still room for improvement, Chac\u00f3n adds.<\/p>\n To help stop the trade, Chac\u00f3n\u2019s group trains people in countries like Guatemala, Honduras and Panama to better recognize hawksbill products.<\/p>\n Panama has shown some success in fighting back against the trade in recent years. In 2022, for instance, raids at two businesses in the province of Chiriqu\u00ed resulted in the seizure of 199 hawksbill spurs. Local law enforcement also recently enlisted the help of Jeffrey Seminoff, head of the marine turtle program at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, to help them identify the origin of a confiscated batch of 77 cockfighting spurs made from hawksbill shells.<\/p>\n Since turtles\u2019 bodies take on the unique isotopic signature of their habitat, Seminoff and his research partner, Joel Schumacher, analyzed levels of stabilized nitrogen and carbon in the spurs, comparing them to baseline levels found in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n They found that 69 of the spurs originated in the Atlantic-Caribbean region. While this wasn\u2019t too surprising, as most of Latin America\u2019s hawksbills reside in Atlantic waters, \u201cthere are eight of those samples that came from the Pacific,\u201d Seminoff says. \u201cAnd so it indicated to us \u2014 it\u2019s like irrefutable evidence \u2014 that the hawksbill supply chain in Panama is getting animals sourced from both their Atlantic coast and their Pacific coast.\u201d<\/p>\n Seminoff says this kind of information could help conservationists focus their efforts on the areas with the highest poaching rates \u2014 in this case, Panama\u2019s Caribbean region. Though no other countries have requested similar analyses, \u201cI felt like this was a really valuable project and something that I\u2019d like to do again if the offer presents itself,\u201d Seminoff tells Mongabay.<\/p>\n In Costa Rica, LAST runs educational programs in primary and secondary schools located near beaches where people hunt hawksbills, as well as in bigger cities along the coast, aiming to engage children in sea turtle conservation from an early age.<\/p>\n Chac\u00f3n says consumer actions are critically important when it comes to protecting turtles. When poachers harvest hawksbills, they\u2019re not targeting them specifically for spurs but also for other products, which often find their way into tourist shops and online markets worldwide.<\/p>\n \u201cThe behavior code of tourists [is very important], especially when it comes to tropical areas \u2014 how they can create a footprint buying these things,\u201d he says. \u201cThe thing is to educate the tourists to not buy turtle products. Do not try to buy or to eat turtle eggs or turtle meat or any aphrodisiac drink like the mamajuana in Dominican Republic or Cuba that has some body parts of the turtle.\u201d<\/p>\n However, communities also must shift their mindset about cockfighting in order to make a difference for turtles and roosters, Heidemeyer says. Though Costa Rica\u2019s cockfighting ban was recently upheld by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after being challenged by the country\u2019s National Association of Cockfighting Breeders in 2017 \u2014 a victory celebrated by animal welfare groups \u2014 both she and Chac\u00f3n are uncertain about any impact this will have on cockfighting or turtle harvests. Cockfighting also remains legal in many other countries, like Colombia and Panama.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure if this is ever going to be eradicated until the people change their mind, their attitude towards animal welfare,\u201d Heidemeyer says.<\/p>\nAn international problem<\/h2>\n
Changing mindsets and behaviors<\/h2>\n