The
agreement comes after years of collaboration between Sea
Shepherd and the Mexican navy to protect the vaquita's reserve
in the Sea of Cortes in northern Mexico. Just 1.5 meters in
length, the vaquita is tiny compared with the blue whale, the
largest cetacean, which extends more than 20 meters.
The critically endangered vaquita has been imperiled by illegal
gill net fishing for the fish totoaba, itself an endangered
species whose bladder is highly valued in Asia. Vaquitas often
become entangled in the nets.
Now local authorities, along with the conservation group, will
effective immediately broaden their efforts along the Mexican
Pacific coast by extending their protection protocols to the
totoaba as well.
They will also expand the protected zone by more than 60% within
the so-called zero tolerance area, in which fishing is
forbidden.
"More protection means a better chance for survival for the
vaquita and the totoaba," Pritam Singh of Sea Shepherd said in a
statement.
The expanded protection is good news, but the Mexican government
should also enforce its ban on illegal fishing more
aggressively, said Alejandro Olivera, senior scientist and
Mexico representative at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The International Whaling Commission issued in August an
extinction alert for the vaquita porpoise.
There was some hope however after Sea Shepherd's latest
surveillance mission spotted around a dozen healthy-looking
vaquitas, including calves, "roughly the same" estimate as the
last survey in October 2021.
(Reporting by Carolina Pulice in Mexico City; Editing by Rod
Nickel)
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