Nearly 1/3 of the fish life caught each year is considered BY-CATCH and thus discarded by the fishermen.
Fishing boats kill and dispose of life they have stripped of the ocean, simply because they catch species that are not as profitable as others.
What about the value of life...?
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Logs & Blogs
'Rio Negro meets Branco'
Dec 12, 2011
6th - 8th Dec
On the way from Santa Isabel to Barcelos, down the Rio Negro, we stopped at a large, beautiful, white sand bar - in the middle of the river! It was a huge island of sand – and nothing else - and the boat was driven straight onto it. Janot found a tern’s egg, sitting in a hollow – its nest. He was looking for turtle nests but did not find any.
The next morning, Wednesday the 7th, we stopped at a sand bank of great significance a few miles up-river from Barcelos. This was the place where, ten years ago, the jungle team jumped on the river-boat Iguana, separated from Sir Peter Blake and Seamaster, both starting different journeys.
As we travelled to Cavoeiro, Cara spent time looking at the sights on the river. It always amazes her how beautiful the river and the forest is. The land is incredibly flat there – no hills, mountains, nor tepuyis in this region. The river widens and narrows, meandering through the forest. We do not necessarily know when we are seeing land or travelling in between the many islands separating the river into sections. We have spent a lot of time travelling, as there are parts of the river that are very shallow, and we had to zigzag down-stream avoiding the hidden sand bars. Bosco, our pilot, is very skilled at this and even knows how to find his way at night.
In the morning we had reached the village of Cavoeiro. We went ashore before breakfast, and everything was still and quiet – except for the dogs and birds! The beautiful yellow and black cardinals were flying from their nests to other trees, singing their lovely songs. The community was still asleep in their homes, so we quietly wandered around, enjoying the little lanes with the houses dotted along the sides. Even though the houses are run down, they are beautiful and have a lot of character with their varying shapes and colours.
Cavoeiro sits next to the junction of the Rio Branco, and this is the widest part of the Rio Negro, about 15 km across. We couldn’t see the other side, however, as this area is also filled with islands. A man from the village joined us on the boat, to guide us on our journey up the Rio Branco, as the river is low at the moment and difficult to navigate.
We noticed the change of the colour of the water almost instantly. Milky brown instead of the dark red or amber-like colours we had been used to. The dark colours of the Rio Negro come from the tannins washed down by decaying plant life. It makes the water slightly acidic, and some bugs like mosquito larvae do not survive here. This was always good news for us! Although, we still had the dreaded black fly. Up the Rio Branco, however, mosquitoes thrive and we had been forewarned about this.
The Apurisssaua arrived at a junction of a smaller tributary, off the Rio Branco. Not long after we had stopped, the crew pointed out a black caiman, its head just sticking out of the water – not far from our boat! These creatures can reach lengths up to 7m.
Miguel went to a nearby boat and came back, with an enormous fish head! The Pirarucu (Arapaima gigas) is the largest fish of the Amazon, and this one, before it was cut up, weighed about 140kg. Miguel said that the largest he has seen weighed 232kg, and was about 3m long. Although it wasn’t pleasant to see such a large and beautiful fish caught and eaten, that is how the locals survive – whether to sell the fish or to take it back to their families.
Late in the afternoon, we took the smaller boats up the waterway to see a ‘lake’, or a section of the river cut off on one end, that is home to lots of wildlife. The first thing we saw was a turtle Janot had spotted – briefly - before Bosco leaped off the boat on top of it! He caught it to show it to us. It was incredible. It looked prehistoric with a ridged carapace, and a flat, spiny head. These particular turtles (matamata) have adapted to pushing only its long snorkel-like nose out of the water to breathe, rather than its whole head. It also does not bite, but mimics biting, thrusting its head forward making a startling sound at the same time. But its real defense is its smell – its stench could be smelt down the boat!
We enjoyed our journey being silent, listening to all sorts of amazing sounds. We could hear the howler monkeys in the distance, other smaller monkeys, birds of all varieties, fish splashing, cicadas, crickets and more. It was fantastic to hear so much activity in one area.
The bird life was spectacular. Large herons flew down the river in front of us, and smaller birds danced around our boat. Brightly coloured kingfishers jumped from tree to tree along the bank, and woodpeckers, toucans and macaws could be seen perched high up in the canopy. Even two, large rare hoatzin were spotted.
As we were listening and watching, Bosco made sounds of his own. He said ‘monkey’ to us as he mimicked a sound that we could hear. High in the trees we eventually saw capuchins moving in a tree! They were far away but absolutely awesome to see.
On the way back it was dark, and we had our torches out looking for the mysterious caimans. When you spot them you can only see their red eyes, shining back at you in the torchlight. Some eyes were very large – and anxiously we wondered how big the rest of their body would be!
~Team Amazon
