In Costa Rica, cockfighting has been illegal for more than a century however, the activity persists underground across the country.
Cockfight participants attach razor-sharp blades known as gaffs or cockspurs to the legs of the birds to make them deadlier.
Aside from roosters who get killed or injured in cockfights, another species has become an unlikely victim of cockfighting: the hawksbill sea turtle. Already a critically endangered species, the shell of the hawksbill sea turtle is often used to make cockfighting spurs.
Hawksbills have long been targeted for their black-and-brown mottled shells. They are often used in jewelry, combs, and other decorations as far back as ancient Rome. Historically, hawksbills have also been hunted for their meat back in the fifth century BCE in China.
Costa Rica-based marine biologist Maike Heidemeyer, head of biodiversity and community for the nonprofit conservation group Natural Capital Reserve, first noticed tortoiseshell spurs at holiday markets two decades ago.
The cockspurs were openly displayed and mixed with other products made out of hawksbill shells. Despite the ban on cockfighting, demand remains on hawksbill products.
“There are associations, groups that openly defend their right to fight cocks, even in Costa Rica,” says Heidemeyer, who has been long involved in sea turtle research and founded Equipo Tora Carey, an organization devoted to coastal marine conservation. “Of course it’s illegal, but then they do it hidden.”
According to Heidemeyer, most of Costa Rica’s hawksbill spurs come into the country from Nicaragua and Panama. Costa Rican authorities have seized hundreds of 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.
While the government is confiscating paraphernalia, Heidemeyer says that “nobody’s really asking about the material of the spike that they’re seeing.”
Hawksbill shell is easily mistaken for plastic. An easy way to differentiate it from plastic is to burn it as when lit, turtle shell smells similar to human hair burning. Both are made up of the same protein, keratin.
Didiher Chacón, 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 work undercover, buying spurs to build criminal cases to present to authorities. Their organization also monitors online social networks for posts selling hawksbill spurs and reports them.
Conservationists face a lot of hurdles though. For instance, frequent officer turnover makes it difficult to ensure staff are adequately trained to identify hawksbill shells when they encounter them.
“Our system in customs is just looking for guns and drugs, not these products,” Chacón says. “I think we need to work harder to try to train the mail officers and the customs police to stop these things.”
The hawksbill species is protected under CITES, the convention that regulates the international wildlife trade but that hasn’t stopped poachers from illegally harvesting them for their shells. According to Chacón, Nicaragua is a hotspot for trading hawksbill products.
To help stop trade, Chacón’s group trains people in countries like Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama to better recognize hawksbill products. Panama has shown success in fighting back against trade, with one instance resulting in the seizure of 199 Hawksbill spurs back in 2022.
Local law enforcement recently enlisted the help of Jeffrey Seminoff, head of the marine turtle program at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, to help them identify the origin of a confiscated batch of 77 cockfighting spurs made from hawksbill shells.
Seminoff and his research partner Joel Schumacher analyzed the turtles’ bodies and the unique isotopic signature of their habitat to find where they originated from. They found that 69 spurs came from the Atlantic-Caribbean region.
According to Seminoff, “Eight of those samples came from the Pacific. And so it indicated to us — it’s like irrefutable evidence — that the hawksbill supply chain in Panama is getting animals sourced from both their Atlantic coast and their Pacific coast.”
Seminoff says this information could help conservationists focus their efforts in areas where the poaching rate is high. In this case, it’s Panama’s Caribbean region.
Chacón’s organization runs educational programs in primary and secondary schools located near beaches where people hunt hawksbills. They aim to engage children in sea turtle conservation from an early age.
According to Chacón, consumer actions are critically important when it comes to protecting turtles. Hawksbills are not targeted specifically for spurs but also for other products that are often sold in tourist shops and online markets worldwide.
“The behavior code of tourists [is very important], especially when it comes to tropical areas — how they can create a footprint buying these things,” he says.
“The 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.”
Heidemeyer says that communities must also shift their mindset about cockfighting in order to make a difference for turtles and roosters.
Costa Rica’s cockfighting ban was recently upheld by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after being challenged by the country’s National Association of Cockfighting BReeders in 2017. However, both Heidemeye and Chacón are uncertain about any impact it will have on cockfighting or turtle harvests.
Cockfighting also remains legal in many other countries, including Colombia and Panama. “I’m not sure if this is ever going to be eradicated until the people change their mind, their attitude towards animal welfare,” Heidemeyer says.
