Mexico Launches Plan to Delimitate Reserve of Vaquitas
By Associated Press •
The Mexican government announced on Thursday that it will place buoys to delimit the reserve where the vaquita lives, the smallest and most threatened porpoise in the world, in an attempt to save the approximately 10 individuals that survive.
Proyecto Vaquita Marina
Nearly one out of every five vaquitas (pictured) get entangled and drown in gillnets intended for other marina species like the totoaba, a critically endangered fish also found in the upper Gulf of California, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Courtesy of Proyecto Vaquita Marina
Nearly one out of every five vaquitas get entangled and drown in gillnets intended for other marina species like the totoaba, a critically endangered fish also found in the upper Gulf of California, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Thomas Jefferson/WWF
On average, females vaquitas tend to be larger than their male counterparts. They mature at a length of 140.6 cm (55.4 in), compared to 134.9 cm (53.1 in) for males.
Omar Vidal/WWF
In 1997 vaquita abundance was estimated as 567, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Frederique Lucas/Viva Vaquita!
Vaquita ready to go back into the Gulf waters.
Tom Jefferson/NOAA Fisheries
The World Wildlife Fund describes the vaquita as the world's smallest cetacean.
Omar Vidal/NOAA
A man stands behind a vaquita that was killed in a net meant to catch the totoaba fish, which he is holding, in this photo taken in the early 1990s.
AFP/Getty Images
Picture taken on March 29, 2016, showing fish maws placed in a basket to dry on the side of a main road outside a dried goods shop in Hong Kong. Mexico is fighting to save species ensnared in China black market by hunting for poachers that use banned gillnets to catch totoaba, a critically endangered fish whose swim bladders are dried and sold for tens of thousands of dollars on the black market in China despite an international prohibition. The government beefed up patrols on the upper Gulf of California a year ago because the vast nets have also led to the near extinction of the world's smallest porpoise, the vaquita.
Omar Vidal/WWF
Scientists found this vaquita stuck in an illegal fishing net during a population survey.
NOAA Fisheries
Eleven years later, in 2008, the total abundance was estimated to be 245 animals.
International Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans
A rather calmer marine mammal, they swim at a leisurely pace and avoid boats.
Paula Olson/Viva Vaquita!
Vaquitas have among the smallest geographical distribution of any of the whales, dolphins and porpoises in the Gulf of California, according to NOAA Fisheries.
Sea Shepherd
The newborn Vaquita porpoise was photographed in the Gulf of California on March 12, 2017, according to crews of Sea Shepherd vessels patrolling the waters.
Tom Jefferson/Viva Vaquita!
They live in productive waters which produce fish and shrimp sold for both domestic and U.S. according to NOAA Fisheries.
Todd Pusser/Viva Vaquita!
Pair of Vaquita surfacing in the calm waters of the Northern Gulf of California.
Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans
Unlike other porpoises, vaquitas give birth only every other year.
Thomas Jefferson
The word vaquita is Spanish for "little cow". The vaquita also goes by cochito (Spanish for "pig" or "sow"), desert porpoise, vaquita porpoise, Gulf of California harbor porpoise, Gulf of California porpoise, and gulf porpoise.
The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources promised to provide social programs and jobs for fishing communities in the Upper Gulf of California, the only place in the world where the vaquita marina lives.
He indicated that tourism, fish farms and better fishing practices in the area will be promoted.
The government faces the challenge of ending the use of gillnets for the illegal fishing of totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is considered a delicacy in China.
Environmental groups said on Thursday that the government program lacks sufficient details, and stressed that more urgent measures are needed to save the vaquita from extinction.
Alejandro Olivera, representative of Mexico for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the plan "is not up to the urgency that is required."
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"With 10 remaining vaquitas, it is necessary the total protection and the elimination of illegal nets of their habitat of immediate form", said Olivera.
In a report published earlier this month, an international commission of experts estimated that only about 6-22 vaquitas survive.
The figure of six was the number of vaquitas that they managed to see on the surface during a research trip towards the end of last year. The highest figure was the number of specimens that could have been heard in an acoustic system that captures the distinctive clicks of the species.
The commission noted that it is most likely that the number of surviving vaquitas is around 10.
Activists have said on previous occasions that the few surviving vaquitas are concentrated in such a small area - a rectangle of about 24 by 12 kilometers (15 by 7 miles) - that some type of floating barrier could be built around them to keep away from the area to the illegal fishing boats.
But the program announced on Thursday seems not to reach such an extreme. Instead, it simply proposes the delimitation with buoys of the vaquita reserve - a more extensive area - although it is very clear that the smugglers know very well where the reserve begins.
The plan proposes fish farms, safe nets for the vaquita and sport fishing for totoaba as a potential source of income for fishermen.
But it will be difficult for these measures to replace the thousands of dollars sometimes perceived by fishermen for a swim bladder of good size totoaba.
