Keep the vaquitas…on earth. Photo: Wikipedia/Paula Olson, NOAA
Consider the vaquita. It’s the world’s smallest porpoise, think of it as a mini-dolphin. Did your heart just explode? It should have because this precious cetacean is seriously adorable and seriously endangered. According to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) the vaquita is the world’s most rare marine mammal. There are fewer than 60 struggling to survive in the northern reaches of Baja’s Gulf of California, the only place on earth they exist. The Gulf, once famously referred to by Jacques-Yves Cousteau as the “world’s aquarium,” should be no mystery to surfers and ocean-lovers alike. You know, it’s that diving heaven over the dusty desert mountains from some of Baja’s best breaks and a nursery for some of the Pacific Ocean’s most magical creatures. No kidding, the vaquita is the kind of animal that makes you say: is that seriously real? Well recent events may have ensured that the vaquita remains real, at least for now. But to fully understand the recent success we must first consider another one of the Upper Gulf’s endemic and most-endangered inhabitants.
Consider the totoaba. Not very cute. It’s silver, it has scales. They grow six feet long and up to 200 hundred pounds. It’s a fish. Kind of monstrous-looking to be honest. However, the totoaba is extremely valuable. Especially if you have a taste for fish bladders. The totoaba swim bladder, an organ that helps fish float, is a prized ingredient in opulent Chinese cuisine and praised for its supposed medicinal qualities. And while they have been illegal to catch in Mexico since 1975, poachers in Baja still earn a month’s wages by selling just a single bladder to a trafficker. Their trade is so lucrative that the bladders are seriously referred to as aquatic cocaine. With such high demand paired with diminishing spawning grounds due to drought and water politics at the border, the totoaba population is failing fast. Poachers driven to desperate measures to supply for the bladder demand have no qualms against dragging gill nets through the Gulf’s dregs. In doing so they tragically kill sea turtles, dolphins, and the adorable, endangered vaquita. In fact, the dire conditions of the vaquita and the totoaba are so tightly interwoven that the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency has referred to their potential collective doom as the “dual extinction.” And at the current rate of bycatch, the WWF reports, the vaquita will be extinct by 2018. What to do?
Recent events suggest 2016 may be the year that the vaquita was granted a new lease on life. First, on July 22 President Obama and President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico released a list of concerns shared by the two governments that included claims that Mexico would ensure a permanent ban on gill netting in the vaquita’s range. Good. Then they agreed that both government’s would increase efforts to eradicate the harvesting and smuggling of totoaba swim bladders. Yes! But despite these steps forward there was something clearly missing in the attempt to solve the vaquita/totoaba puzzle of doom. China, the undeniable source of totoaba demand, was in no way involved in these last ditch efforts to prevent the dual extinction. So once the bladders shipped overseas there was no relevant law to prevent their trade. Bummer. Enter the Convention on International Trade in endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. (Since that’s such a mouthful, everyone calls them CITES.)
On September 24, CITES launched its “Conference of the Parties” all-hands-on shindig in Johannesburg, South Africa in order to bring “the global community together to tackle the world’s biggest wildlife challenges.” In preparation for the monumental event, Mexico submitted a proposal for an international call to arms to end the double doom of the totoaba and vaquita. On September 29, El Universal reported success: all 182 CITES member countries agreed “to intercept illegal shipments of totoaba and report all seizures, arrests and prosecutions to the CITES Secretariat, with the results subsequently analyzed and recommendations for further actions made annually.” Now we’re talking.
The vaquita’s army just grew from 2 to 182 nations strong and has finally asserted itself on the continent that has so lavishly funded its extinction. Now, here’s to hoping it isn’t too late for the last 60 vaquita still being their little adorable selves in the Upper Gulf and the gnarly totoaba doing whatever it is they do. Consider the cute vaquita, because, for now at least, they’re still a real living thing.
