Viva La Vaquita! Vaquita are also on the verge of extinction: there are only ~97 of these Gulf of California harbor porpoise left; and are declining at nearly ~20% per year! The Mexican government did not announce stricter fishing regulations in late November as expected. If vaquitas vanish, they would be the first known cetacea in North America to do so and the first in the world since the Chinese river dolphin was declared extinct in 2006. They get caught in the gill nets of Mexican fishermen casting for large blue shrimp, a delicacy American restaurant-goers crave. They also drown in the nets of poachers in pursuit of the endangered totoaba, a large sea bass prized for its bladder, which is cherished by the Chinese as an alternative medicine; a pair of totoaba bladders can fetch $8,500 in China, officials with the National Marine Fisheries Service said. In recent weeks, 385 bladders were confiscated in Mexico City. To rescue vaquitas, international scientists are hoping for a collaboration between the United States, where the shrimp is consumed; China, where the bladders are boiled into a soup; and Mexico, where fishermen are trying to feed families. Mexico passed laws that would gradually replace mesh gill nets that snare the animals with a baglike trawl made of lightweight material, but U.S. officials said that the three-year transition could be fatal for an animal predicted to disappear altogether in four years. Paying fishermen to stop using gill nets is one option; Mexico was exploring the idea of buying trawls that cost between $1,000 and $5,000. Solutions such as closing parts of the gulf or eliminating gill nets do impact fishermen in the area and the community, but they should not be so hard to implement. The upper Gulf of California near the Colorado River delta is the endangered vaquita’s only habitat. In 1985, they were placed on the U.S. Endangered Species List. Five years later, they were entered on the international union’s red list of endangered animals, and a year later, the species was bumped up to a critically endangered declaration. A quick recovery for the remaining vaquita is not likely, biologists say. They mature at 3 to 6 years of age, and females give birth to a single calf every other year.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 19:00:05 +0000
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