Losing Vaquita

 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List has nine categories and criteria for the evaluation of Earth’s biodiversity: Not Evaluated, Data Deficient, Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, Extinct in the Wild and Extinct. With each passing day it seems more and more animals fall within the category of “Critically Endangered.”

One of those animals is the diminutive vaquita (Phocoena sinus). The smallest member of the cetacean family, this tiny porpoise is the most critically endangered marine animal in the world. Population estimates put its numbers at a total of perhaps 10 individual animals.

Vaquita live only in the northern Gulf of California, the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, making them the only porpoises that live in warm waters. Very little is known about them because, like other species of porpoise, they are extremely shy and flee (wisely) at the first sign of boats or other human activity. Scientists have been able to carry out detailed study only on dead vaquita that wash up on beaches or are caught in fishing nets.

It is fishing that has driven vaquita to the very edge of extinction, and the primary weaponry employed by fisherman is the cruel gillnet. A gillnet is a wall of netting, sometimes hundreds of feet high, typically made of monofilament or multifilament nylon, that hangs suspended in the water column. The nets are virtually invisible, and sea animals of every kind are indiscriminately trapped and killed. In the case of vaquita, death comes by drowning.

As with so many other species, the vaquita’s dire situation is directly linked to that of another critically endangered species, called the totoaba. A totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi) is a large marine species of drum that is killed solely for its swim bladder. The rest of the fish is perfectly edible but its bladder is a big-ticket item. In China the bladders are considered delicacies that also have medicinal “value” within that country’s objectively dodgy system of traditional medicine.

(Totoaba)

After a totoaba is killed, its swim bladder is removed and then dried. Parcels of dried bladders are smuggled by agents of international criminal gangs from Mexico to Beijing, where customers are willing to pay top dollar. On the Chinese black market a single kilogram of dried totoaba bladder can fetch in excess of $45,000US. Little wonder that the stuff is referred to as the “cocaine of the sea.”

(Dried Totoaba Swim Bladders for Sale in a Chinese Market)

Some people, including many who ought to know better, claim that Mexican fishermen receive a lucrative share of all that swim-bladder cash, but they do not. No, they earn only pennies from their illegal activities. The vast majority of the money ends up lining the pockets of Asian crime lords and their corrupt governmental lapdogs.

Fishing for totoaba was prohibited in 1975 by international agreement, but because of the dollar values involved illegal netting is rampant today. In 2020 the United States banned the importation of all shrimp and other seafood caught in the vaquita’s home habitat, pending Mexico’s suppression of illegal fishing in the Sea of Cortez, and the provisioning of lawful fishermen with new gear featuring escape mechanisms for trapped vaquita, similar to those that have proven very effective with sea turtles.

(A Vaquita, Drowned in an Illegal Gillnet)

The question of what China is doing to curb smuggling on its end of the pipeline is a nonstarter. Whenever China is questioned about its oversized role in the depletion of endangered species, its officials swear each and every time that they are cracking down on smugglers. Generally speaking, though, these crackdowns are of limited effectiveness, or are revealed to have never existed at all. 

The fact of the matter is that China is so financially powerful that it can withstand all but the most enormous trade sanctions. Plus, there isn’t a country out there with enough spine to press the point, and risk losing access to China’s moolah-gushing markets, particularly on behalf of a tiny porpoise that most people have never heard of. So it is Mexico that gets punished. Not without cause, mind you, but there it is.

The US seafood embargoes were a serious financial problem for Mexico. At first, they grudgingly agreed to do what was required in order to have them lifted, but what little enthusiasm they had for the idea quickly waned. They said that the new fishing gear they were obliged to purchase was too expensive, and that they didn’t have the money, the vessels, or the manpower to patrol the Sea of Cortez looking for fishermen who were only trying to earn a living.

Usually in situations like this the United States just shrugs it shoulders, tells environmentalists that nothing more can be done, and then goes back to its primary function, giving handjobs to international corporations. But not this time. In April of 2021, the US widened the ban on seafood imports from Mexico to include shrimp caught in all Mexican waters. As sanctions go this one was an order of magnitude more severe than the first, and if it actually goes into effect will cost Mexico in excess of $262 million per annum.

If Mexico decides to carry on with business as usual, it’s doubtful that the US or any other country will do anything more to stop them. Thankfully there are independent environmental groups that are unwilling to sit around and wait to see what happens. One of those groups is the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

(The Sea Shepherd Vessel Farley Mowat Destroying Illegal Fishing Gear)

In 2015 Sea Shepherd launched Operation Milagro, sending six ships from its fleet into the Gulf of California, where they began patrolling for illegal gillnet fishing and, when they found it, confiscating illegal fishing equipment. Even though they had to suspend the operation from late 2019 through 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, they have still captured and removed over 1,000 pieces of prohibited gear.

It’s a shame that there are not more organizations like Sea Shepherd, with members who are willing to put their own lives on the line in to stand between wildlife and extinction. But they are only one group, and time is not on the side of the vaquita. If diplomacy and direct action fail there is another idea that’s beginning to gain traction. 

A small but vocal group of conservationists and cetacean experts have suggested that the only way to save the vaquita from complete extinction is to capture the 10 remaining animals, and place them under direct human care, where they can be protected until a better solution gets sorted out.

It’s a drastic idea and not without its problems, not the least of which is the fact that even cetacean experts have little knowledge about how the porpoises might respond to captivity. Many sea mammals are famously ill-equipped to survive the stresses of tank life, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that captive vaquita could succumb to those pressures.

The primary motivation behind capturing the remaining vaquita is the creation of a captive breeding program. But as has been shown repeatedly with captive bottlenose dolphins, beluga whales, and orca, providing an environment congenial to mating is quite difficult, so much so that host facilities often must resort to artificial insemination. And even if a female does manage to conceive, bringing the calf to term and keeping it alive afterword is insanely problematic.

(Vaquita and Calf)

Another obstacle to the captivity solution comes in the form of conservation organizations themselves. Some well-meaning environmental groups are so vehemently opposed to keeping animals locked up that they would rather see the animals die – or even go extinct – than to have them caged. Are they wrong? Speaking for myself, I’d prefer we do everything in our power to save vaquita rather than simply consign them into oblivion.

So, then, here we are. Solutions are difficult, and we might be too late, but we have to try. In these desperate times the prospect of losing vaquita, these lovely, gentle little creatures, would be heartbreaking.