Import Ban Urged to Save 2 Sea Species

A wildlife protection group demanded Thursday that the Bush Administration act immediately to protect two endangered marine species in the Gulf of California, saying a Mexican government crackdown has been inadequate.

In a formal petition filed with federal wildlife and commerce officials, the Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife group proposed banning the importation of certain Mexican fish in filet form in order to protect the totoaba fish and the world’s most endangered porpoise, the elusive vaquita.

Totoaba fishermen in the states of Baja California and Sonora have decimated the vaquita population over the years by accidentally snaring the porpoises in gill nets. Although obscured by the debate over other dolphins killed by Mexican tuna nets, the plight of the vaquita , or “little cow, “ is dire.

Experts believe only a few hundred vaquita remain in existence; the small, shy mammals are so rarely seen alive that fishermen call them phantoms.

Their slaughter has been fed by tourist demand for totoaba in northern gulf fishing villages. U.S. business people and tourists smuggle totoaba north across the border in the form of filets, passing them off as sea bass or other legal species, activists say.

A crackdown ordered by Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has resulted in tougher enforcement of a totoaba fishing ban that had been ignored until now, with arrests of two fishermen last month and stepped-up patrols by wildlife inspectors and the Mexican Navy.

But Defenders of Wildlife said an undercover team of investigators sent to the Gulf of California in April found that the fish are still being widely killed, sold and consumed.

The Mexican enforcement program is “a face-saving effort, it doesn’t seem to have any teeth,” said Defenders of Wildlife spokesman Christopher Croft, a former U.S. Marine Fisheries Service inspector, in a telephone interview from Washington. “Our Administration calls this a foreign problem, but it’s U.S. demand and dollars that are fueling the fish market.”

Mexican officials disagreed. They said their efforts have had a dramatic impact on totoaba fishing during the peak season, which runs from February through May.

“We have a program of very rigorous inspection, and we have reinforced it,” said Moises Zazueta Gastelum, delegate of the Mexican Secretariat of Fisheries in the state of Sonora. “The Mexican government has the intention of conserving these species. . . . It is possible that someone may have escaped our vigilance, but we are not aware of such a case.”

In the United States, meanwhile, federal wildlife officials said they will have to study the Defenders of Wildlife petition, which requires a response within several months and could lead to a court fight if rejected.

Activists have asked either for a rule change requiring Gulf of California fish to be imported with intact heads and tails for easier identification at the border, or for a declaration of endangered species status for species that resemble the totoaba and are now imported legally.

Special Agent Eugene Proulx, the Long Beach-based regional head of enforcement for the fisheries service, said banning imports of filets would make enforcement easier.

But he said a concerted operation this year to combat illegal importation of totoaba turned up less than was expected. In 100 hours of investigation, inspectors found only four truckloads of the fish, all transported by tourists for personal consumption, he said.

“Usually when I expend 100 very precious investigative hours, I usually come up with a lot more than that,” Proulx said. “I’m not saying that there is no illegality going on here and that the borders are closed. But I’m not going to say that it’s rampant, because it doesn’t appear to be. It’s not pouring across the border.”

That does not mean the destruction of the vaquita and totoaba has diminished in the Gulf of California, Proulx said. He and other officials said only their Mexican counterparts can directly attack the problem, and that their progress is hard to measure.

“We are on the tail end of this process,” said Special Agent Gary Gilbreath. “We have been talking to the Mexicans, and enforcement has been an increasingly important issue, and they have recognized this. . . . We see a more positive environment on this than we did in the past. But whether it’s all smoke and mirrors, I don’t know.”

During a monthlong visit to the fishing villages of San Felipe in Baja California and El Golfo de Colorado in Sonora, Defenders of Wildlife activists said they talked to fishermen who said the totoaba fishing persisted despite beach and sea patrols by armed Mexican marines.

Croft said totoaba were being sold from homes and trucks and that one fisherman told of catching five vaquita at one time, a “frightening” proportion of a total population that is not expected to last more than 10 years under current conditions. Croft said he hopes to call attention to the vaquita, whose range encompasses only the northern section of the gulf and whose numbers decline by at least 35 a year.

“This is the most endangered marine mammal in the world, and people are not aware of its plight,” he said.

The vaquita is being studied by a newly created Mexican committee of academic and government experts, according to Zazueta, including experts at the Monterey Technological Institute campus in Guaymas.

One researcher at the campus, U.S. marine scientist Lloyd Findley, expressed more faith than the U.S. activists in the Mexican crackdown. He said many totoaba fishermen had desisted as a result. And he said he would support a ban on filet importation only if Mexican government pressure relents.

“I’m more confident because this directive comes directly from President Salinas de Gortari himself,” Findley said. “It seems that, because it’s at a higher level, the interest in conservation and enforcement has been aggressive.”