Mexico's vaquita on brink of extinction
Fishermen in Sea of Cortez split over protection measure
SAN FELIPE, Mexico For years, scientists have warned of the declining numbers of vaquita porpoise, a small and elusive sea mammal endemic to the muddy waters of the Upper Gulf of California. With fewer than 100 vaquita believed alive today, the species is now facing a new threat to its survival: growing demand for another endangered species in the region, the giant totoaba fish, whose swim bladder is valued in China for its perceived medicinal value.
Small and naturally shy, “the vaquita is in imminent danger of extinction,” states a report by the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita, a group of experts appointed by the Mexican government. “Unless drastic action is taken immediately, the vaquita will be lost.”
If nothing is done, scientists warn that by 2018 the vaquita will follow in the footsteps of the now-extinct baiji dolphin that once flourished on China’s Yangtse River.
Scientists say the main threat to the vaquita are the drift gill nets favored by fishermen who catch shrimp and fish in the Upper Gulf. The vaquitas are an unintended bycatch that become ensnared in the nets and drown.
The long-term threat from legal fisheries has been compounded by growing presence of the illicit totoaba fisheries over the past two years — an activity fueled by the high price of the swim bladders, up to $8,500 per kilo, “equivalent to a half year’s income from legal fishing activities,” according to the report. As with the legal fisheries, vaquitas risk being a bycatch.
But the report’s key recommendations — a complete ban on the gill nets throughout the vaquita’s habitat by Sept. 1 and an immediate crackdown on the totoaba fisheries — won’t be easy to implement.
Saving the vaquita requires action not only by the Mexican government, but the collaboration of China and the United States, through which the totoaba bladders are smuggled. “If the three countries don’t act swiftly, we’ll probably lose this species,” said Omar Vidal, general director of the World Wildlife Fund in Mexico. “One thing you have to remember, the fishermen are not the bad guys; they want to make a living.”
Vidal calls the vaquita “the Mexican panda.” First identified in 1958, vaquita have been rarely spotted, due to their low numbers but also because they are elusive and tend to avoid vessels. The smallest of the cetaceans, they grow to about four or five feet and weigh up to 120 pounds, and are characterized by dark rings around the eyes and dark patches on the lips.
“They’re a magical creature,” said Barbara Taylor, a conservation biologist with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla. She has been studying the vaquita since 1991. A member of the International Commission, she has helped track the vaquita population through an acoustic monitoring system. “That is what clued us in to their catastrophic decline,” she said.
Efforts to slow the population decline had met with some success — until the resurgence of totoaba fisheries in 2012, Taylor said.
“This situation of gill nets and animals that only live in coastal waters is a global problem,” Taylor said. “It’s a special problem with small fishermen that need to put food on the table.” If Mexico finds a way to protect the vaquita, “they’ll be a global example.”
The Mexican government to date has spent close to $30 million on efforts to protect the vaquita. These have included the declaration in 2005 of a nearly 195-square-mile vaquita refuge, and a program that compensates fishermen who switch from the gill nets, nicknamed chinchorros, to the vaquita-friendly trawl, called chango ecologico.
Last year, the Mexican government approved measures to phase out the drift gill nets over a three-year period, gradually substituting them for a light trawl that is said to be vaquita-safe. The report urges more immediate action.
“Saving the vaquita is a priority for the Mexican government,” said Mario Aguilar, head of Mexico’s National Commission of Aquaculture and Fishing. The commission has only recently received the report, and “we’re going to work 24-7 to analyze this.”
Authorities are also working up estimates of what it would cost to support fishermen who give up the gill nets. “We’ve got to recognize that this is an issue that is going to require some resources,” Aguilar said. “Don’t forget that there are 30,000 families that are going to have to find a different way of life.”
The vaquita issue has been simmering for years in San Felipe, a Baja California fishing community located about 120 miles from the U.S. border. For generations, families here have looked to the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez, for their livelihood. Their product includes shrimp, mackerel, snapper and other fish, much of which ends up on the plates of U.S. consumers.
Directly affected by any new government measures aimed at protecting the vaquita would be the holders of more than 900 fishing permits in San Felipe and two other fishing communities on the Upper Gulf — Golfo de Santa Clara and Puerto Peñasco, said Sergio Pérez, a biologist with Puerto Peñasco-based Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans.,. The new ban would prohibit gill nets over an area close to 1,150 square miles — about six times that of the existing vaquita refuge.
At sundown Thursday, a pale evening light enveloped the mountains, sky and water around San Felipe, creating a picture postcard setting as fishermen set off with gill nets in small boats known as pangas to catch mackerel. As they headed for the water, the fishermen said they had never seen a vaquita, and several shrugged off the question, saying, “it’s a myth.”
A gill net ban “would bring chaos to this town,” said Sunshine Rodríguez, a fisherman and leader of a federation of fishing cooperatives in San Felipe. “The truth is there is going to be illegal fishery, it’s going to multiply by ten.”
Rodríguez’s group has publicly protested the government’s move to ban the gill nets, announcing this month the formation of a “fishing self-defense group” that is “prepared to take measures against a “government of impositions.”
But not all fishermen are adamantly against the gill net ban. San Felipe native Antonio García Orozco has been working with the vaquita-safe light trawls since 2009. One of the obstacles, he said, has been the presence of gill nets in areas where he is trying to operate the trawl.
“You can’t work both at the same time,” he said. ‘When they give us an opportunity to operate the trawls as they should, that’s when we’ll know if it’s economically feasible.”