Vaquita Photo: Paula Olson, NOAA
In 2017, we posted about an attempt to use Navy-trained dolphins in a last-ditch effort to capture and save the few surviving vaquita. The vaquita is a small porpoise found only in the Gulf of California that is in imminent danger of extinction. The project was abandoned when a captured vaquita died from the stress of capture. In 2017, fewer than 30 vaquita were left. Now the number is around 10.
The vaquita weren’t discovered until 1958 and now are in danger of being wiped out by illegal gill-netting by fishermen in the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez. The vaquita are being caught and drowned in gill-nets set by fishermen to catch shrimp and fish. Researchers say the nets are the only known cause for the species’ catastrophic decline, but getting rid of them has turned out to be a challenge.
Particularly dangerous to the vaquita are gillnets set to catch totoaba. From Porpoise.org: The totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi) is a large species of fish native to the Gulf of California in Mexico. Like the vaquita, it is listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as “critically endangered”. The totoaba is being sought after for its swim bladder, which is considered a delicacy in China. The dried totoaba swim bladders are so valuable that they are referred to as the “cocaine of the sea”, with prices of up to $46,000 per kg on the Chinese black market. Fishing for totoaba was banned in Mexico in 1975, but due to its high value, illegal fishing has become rampant.
Because of the totoaba’s large size, nets designed to catch the fish have a mesh size that is also perfect to catch vaquita. And once caught, they drown within minutes as by-catch.
To protect vaquitas, a Mexican government order prohibits gill nets in much of the upper Gulf of California, the only place where the mammals live. Another bans all fishing in a far smaller section of the gulf, officially called the zero-tolerance area, where they’ve been spotted in recent years.
The rules are fine but enforcement is reported to be effectively non-existant.
This fall, fishing boats openly carrying gill nets were waved into the gulf by members of the Mexican Navy. On Nov. 3, scientists counted 117 fishing boats in the off-limits area in a single day, according to a report obtained by The New York Times.
Referring to the zero-tolerance area, which covers about 7 miles by 15 miles, the text of the order “prohibits the navigation of any type of vessel within this zone, except for surveillance, investigation or net-recovery boats.” It also states that “fishing of any kind is prohibited.”
The New York Times reports that one day in early November scientists counted more than 100 boats in the zero-tolerance area, with no sign of enforcement, according to the scientists’ report.
Local fishermen see setting their gill nets as necessary to their own survival. Rodrigo López Olivo, who uses gill nets to catch shrimp and other legal species, recalled seeing vaquitas a handful of times over his 20 years on the gulf. He found the porpoises beautiful, he said. But he doesn’t see a future for them.
“How are you going to let a town die to care for six animals?” Mr. López asked.