Futures of 2 Gulf of California Sea Creatures Said to Be at Risk

A Mexican harbor porpoise and her calf skim the water’s surface in a rare sighting captured on video in April.

But, before environmentalist Christopher Croft shared the moment with participants of a U.S.-Mexico conference in San Diego Friday, he dampened the mood.

“The pair of beautiful animals you are about to see may already be dead,” said Croft, a spokesman for the Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife.

Environmentalists, academics and government officials from both sides of the border came to the conference Friday to share their views on two endangered species from the Gulf of California: the harbor porpoise--known as vaquita , or little cow--and the totoaba , a high-priced delicacy that caused the fishing towns of the northern gulf to bloom in the 1920s.

Both creatures are headed for extinction unless the U.S. and Mexico take further measures to protect them, conference participants said.

The vaquitas , secretive marine mammals that live only in the northernmost portion of the Gulf of California and now number an estimated

several hundred, often become ensnared in gill nets cast by totoaba poachers. More than 30 die this way yearly, Croft said.

Although both species are listed as endangered, and totoaba fishing with gill nets has been illegal in Mexico since 1975, the fish brings in a good price. Forty to 70 tons a year continue to be sold to Mexicans and U.S. tourists, as well as exported illegally in filets that are hard to identify, Croft said.

Suggestions to save the species included banning all Mexican filet imports, banning gill net fishing and trawling in the northern gulf and replacing the northern Baja and Sonoran fishing economies--which have suffered markedly over the past few years from decreased yields of legal species--with eco-tourism.

“How are we all going to feel if the vaquita goes extinct?” asked conference co-chairman Daniel Anderson in a rallying cry to participants. Anderson, a UC Davis biologist, expressed the hope that Friday’s conference would not only improve the species’ chances of survival, but bolster the recent Mexican efforts to protect them and further cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico.

The conference, held Friday and Saturday, is the sixth in a series of binational dialogues organized by the University of California Consortium on Mexico and the United States. Saturday’s session will focus on the tropical dolphin and tuna fishing controversy. Myriad dolphins are encircled and netted along with tuna in Eastern Pacific waters yearly. Concern for the dolphins has led to a U.S. ban on canned tuna imports from many countries, and Thursday, congressional hearings began on legislation dealing with the problem.

That issue, which involves a high-powered commercial fishing industry and a large number of dolphin deaths, has attracted international attention, especially in light of the pending North American Free Trade Agreement. Although the vaquita-totoaba issue has grabbed far less attention, the timing of recent Mexican totoaba- related legislation is significant, Omar Vidal said.

“In the U.S., (Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari) is known as the ecological president. He realizes it can improve his image and improve the image of Mexico,” Vidal, a vaquita and totoaba expert from Guaymas, Sonora, said. “I think it’s a real commitment, but, yes, I think this trade agreement has something to do with it.”

The threatened vaquita and totoaba have come to the attention of both governments in recent months.

In May, Defenders of Wildlife filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Commerce calling for a ban on certain Mexican fish in filet form. Totoaba filets, illegal to import, often pass through U.S. Customs as similar but legal fish, such as white sea bass, Croft said. If the filet petition fails, Croft’s group has petitioned to list the white sea bass, a common species, as endangered to avoid the mixups.

Croft said the Department of Commerce has responded positively to the possible filet ban.

Defenders of Wildlife investigated totoaba fishing, and the vaquita deaths associated with it, in April. Posing as tourists, they found that fishermen commonly caught and sold the endangered fish, and agreed to take tourists out to fish for it with gill nets, Croft said. It was also available in restaurants in San Felipe, Tijuana, Mexicali and in at least one San Diego restaurant, Croft said.

Although Defenders of Wildlife says Mexican efforts to enforce the totoaba fishing ban have been ineffective, Mexicans participating in Friday’s conference say that may be changing. Vidal said he thinks the filet ban is unrealistic and unlikely to go through. However, he has been working with federal fisheries officials in La Jolla to develop a test that would make it easier to identify totoaba filets at the border, he said. As for placing fish that look similar to totoaba on the endangered species list, “you cannot create an artificial crisis in order to solve another crisis,” Vidal said.

Mexican government officials have taken some substantial steps recently to address the issue, he added. “In the past they just sent a patrol boat for four days, confiscated a gill net and never came back,” Vidal said.

Since a law was passed in February outlawing the gill nets most commonly used to catch totoaba, two fishermen have been fined and briefly jailed, he said. The Mexican navy has agreed to continually patrol the northern gulf, and a technical committee was appointed in March to research the issue.

Despite the recent government efforts, however, Vidal and other Mexican academics called for a total ban on gill net fishing and trawling in the northern gulf area the shy vaquita inhabits.

“For now, this committee has only researched possible recommendations. But there is already enough research to make decisions,” Vidal said.

And, even though he applauded the February ban on totoaba- sized gill nets, vaquitas also become ensnared in gill nets used to catch sharks, rays and mackerel, he said.

Despite environmental concerns for the threatened vaquita and totoaba, conference participants also stressed their concern for fishing communities in the states of Baja California and Sonora. Some of those communities, such as San Felipe, grew up around a thriving totoaba trade in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, Vidal said.

“We need to maintain a balance between the species and the social and economic well-being of the communities,” said Roberto Sanchez, a researcher with the Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

“I question the moral stance of environmentalists who see species protection as more important,” he added. “In a country like Mexico, the conservation of nature cannot become another element of social inequality.”

Sanchez proposed that the northern gulf fishing industry--already suffering from over-harvesting and chemical pollutants--be replaced by eco-tourism. Once the gulf recovered, limited gill net fishing could be reintroduced. The ban would not apply to hook-and-line fishing. Those fishermen who continue to harvest totoaba should be fined severely and cut off from social benefits, he said.

Heriberto Amaya-Solano, a Sonoran fisherman from the Gulf of Santa Clara, agreed.

“If the (gill net ban) becomes broader, some fishermen might resent it,” he told the conference. “But the problem already exists. It’s not profitable. There’s no shrimp, no sharks, no rays. The damage has been done. For me, it’s clear it would be a benefit in the long term. Let’s think of another option for another way of life.”

Fishermen with such long-term outlooks are not that common, however.

In the Defenders of Wildlife video shot in April, one unidentified totoaba fisherman, who said he used to find four to five dead vaquitas in his totoaba gill net at a time, told a different story.

“The other species aren’t worth anything,” he said. “There’s no good price for them, nothing.”