Video and photos show a tiny, critically endangered harbor porpoise still hanging around
The world’s most endangered marine mammal, a tiny harbor porpoise called the vaquita, is holding on to its existence and appears to be benefiting from new conservation measures, according to the results of the species’ latest scientific study.
An international team of scientists estimated that at least 10 vaquitas remain in the Gulf of California, the waters that separate Baja California from the Mexican mainland. The porpoises are found nowhere else and are threatened with extinction by drowning in gillnets, a type of fishing gear that floats around like a huge mesh curtain and catches fish by their gills. Dolphins, sea turtles and vaquitas also become trapped and die if they cannot surface to breathe.
“Today we have good news, hopeful news,” María Luisa Albores González, Mexico’s minister of the Environment and Natural Resources, said at a news conference Wednesday announcing the study results.
Researchers used visual identification and acoustic monitoring for 17 days in May to survey the population. Among the video footage captured of the elusive animals was a small dorsal fin emerging next to a larger one, evidence of a calf swimming alongside its mother.
The estimated number of vaquitas in the new survey was similar to the previous one, conducted in 2021. At the time, researchers were stunned by what else they saw: more than 100 fishing boats in a highly protected zone known as the Zero Tolerance Zone. At the time, the Mexican Navy acknowledged its lack of enforcement to The Times.
Since then, the Navy has been working more closely with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a non-profit organization that patrols the region for gillnets. And last year, the Navy took a big new step by dropping a grid of 193 concrete blocks with protruding hooks, designed to entangle gillnets, into the zero-tolerance zone. The gillnet there appears to have dropped by more than 90 percent, the new report notes.
“It’s the biggest vaquita conservation success I’ve seen in 30 years,” said Barbara Taylor, a biologist and vaquita expert who led the study and who recently retired from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries.
But more will be needed to save the species, she said. While no gillnets were observed in the zero tolerance area during the study, it was regularly seen in the Northwest where vaquitas were also seen. Officially, the equipment is prohibited in a wider zone outside the zero tolerance zone.
The report recommends expanding the use of the concrete blocks.
“That’s such easy, low-hanging fruit for the Mexican government,” said Dr. Taylor. “They know where to do it, they know where to go, they know it will make a difference right away, before the next fishing season.”
A more difficult step is the transition from local economies dependent on gillnets to new equipment. A large and endangered species of fish in the region, the totoaba, has made the situation particularly volatile as its swim bladder commands high prices in Asia and attracts illegal trade and organized crime. But legal species are also fished with gill nets, including shrimp, corvina and mackerel.
A local effort to promote vaquita-safe equipment is run by a group called Pesca ABC. The methods produce a higher quality catch, but so far there is only enough demand from seafood buyers to support about 30 fishermen.
Katy Carpio works with Pesca ABC and was one of the few members of the community who participated in the study and received training on how to identify the animals. Out with the researchers, she saw a vaquita for the first time.
“It was a lot of emotion,” she said. “Good luck, adrenaline.”
The animals are so rare and hard to spot that many in the community don’t believe they exist. “They tell me, ‘It was a dolphin, it was this, it was that,'” Ms. Carpio said. “And I tell them, ‘Wait until they release the results, then you’ll see the pictures.’
The key for the future, she said, is finding solutions that work for both vaquitas and anglers.
Mexico is under increasing international pressure to enforce gillnet fishing bans in the protected vaquita habitat. The country faces current or potential trade sanctions under two United States laws, a global wildlife trade treaty and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Conserving the species by capturing some is not an option. An attempt to do just that was halted in 2017 after an animal became so stressed by human contact that she died.
“Many very experienced people thought the vaquita would be gone by now,” said Kristin Nowell, executive director of Cetacean Action Treasury, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving the vaquita from extinction. “The fact that things are going better than expected gives Mexico another chance to get this right.”