(*10*)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Call to Earth is a NCS editorial sequence dedicated to reporting on the environmental challenges dealing with our planet, along with the options. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with NCS to drive consciousness and schooling round key sustainability points and to encourage optimistic motion.
The vaquita, a tiny porpoise present in the northern Gulf of California, is the most endangered marine mammal species in the world. Sometimes known as the “pandas of the sea” for the darkish rings round their eyes and smiling black lips, populations have declined by 98% in the final 30 years.
According to the latest count in October, fewer than 10 individuals are estimated to stay.
The crucial lows have been pushed by unlawful gillnet fishing (which entails hanging a wall of netting from the floor of the water) primarily for the endangered totoaba fish, whose swim bladder is taken into account a delicacy in China, and might be offered for as a lot as $10,000 per bladder. Vaquitas, which develop to about 5 toes (1.5 meters) lengthy and are comparable in measurement to totoabas, are caught in the nets as bycatch.
The fishing of totoaba has been banned in Mexico since 1975 and the nation completely outlawed gillnet fishing in the Upper Gulf of California in 2017. Both the vaquita and totoaba are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which prohibits their commerce. Yet, regardless of these precautions the harmful follow has continued. In March 2025, the Mexican authorities seized over 9 kilometers (6 miles) of unlawful gillnets containing 72 useless totoaba.
Now, as the vaquita teeters on the edge of extinction, conservationists are urgently asking what can be completed to avoid wasting the species. At the CITES conference of parties, held Nov. 24-Dec. 5 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Mexico’s efforts to guard the species are beneath evaluation.
Lorenzo Rojas Bracho, a Mexican scientist who has labored on vaquita conservation for over 30 years and is a senior advisor to the National Marine Mammal Foundation, mentioned that the focus must be on offering fishers with various, vaquita-safe gear.
“It’s a vicious circle. To save the vaquita, you need to eliminate bycatch, and to eliminate bycatch, you have to eliminate the gillnet — and that has not happened,” he instructed NCS.
In a 2023 analysis for the IUCN Species Survival Commission, Rojas Bracho discovered that gillnets continued to be used extensively for catching shrimp and fish in the Upper Gulf of California and that little progress had been made towards transitioning communities to various fishing gear.
He mentioned that whereas various gear has been developed, there isn’t any incentive for fishers to make use of it, as a result of it’s typically costlier and fewer environment friendly, and the ban on gillnets is poorly policed.
“You have to support the communities, and the communities have to support you to reach an agreement,” he mentioned, including that there must be some type of compensation for transferring to various gear.
One measure that has efficiently acted as a deterrent is the set up of concrete blocks on the seafloor which have hooks protruding from the prime to snag unlawful gillnets. But Rojas Bracho mentioned that these have solely been put in in a small half of the vaquita vary and are not a everlasting resolution to the downside. The identical goes for the “zero tolerance area,” a 225-square-kilometer (87-square-mile) no-fishing zone established in the higher gulf. While the use of gillnets has declined on this space, he mentioned that it can not solely be relied on for species restoration as the vaquitas use habitat exterior of this zone.
However, Rojas Bracho is optimistic that beneath Mexico’s new administration, which was inaugurated in 2024, efforts to guard the vaquita will speed up. Within a month of taking workplace, the authorities arrange conferences about the vaquita which he believes signifies political will.
“We have new authorities in the National Commission for Aquaculture and Fisheries, and new authorities in the Mexican Institute for Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture –– that gives us hope,” he mentioned.
But they need to act quick, he warned: “This is the best moment in terms of policies and administration, but a very bad moment for the number of vaquita left.”
Limit demand
Efforts to avoid wasting the vaquita can even occur additional afield, by stamping out demand for totoaba.
Paola Mosig Reidl, co-lead of information, analysis and enforcement assist at Traffic, an NGO working globally on commerce in wild animals and vegetation, instructed NCS that “a demand reduction effort is key,” including that Traffic had lately began to implement a “behavior change project” in China geared toward decreasing the demand for unlawful totoaba bladder.
She mentioned that these measures, mixed with strengthened enforcement and elevated coordination between Mexico, China and the US, would assist to fight the organized crime networks fueling the commerce.
“The illegal totoaba trade spans source, transit and destination countries, so coordinated action can significantly enhance impact. It enables intelligence-sharing, joint law-enforcement operations, stronger controls along trade routes, and more consistent regulatory approaches, making it harder for criminal networks to operate,” she mentioned.
Another possibility is to scale back the unlawful commerce of totoaba by permitting farmed totoaba for export — an idea generally known as “conservation farming.” A recent study by the University of California, Santa Barbara, and AgroParisTech discovered that farmed totoaba may assist scale back poaching, and it famous that there are already aquaculture operations in Mexico that farm the fish, though worldwide commerce of it’s unlawful.
Mosig Reidl mentioned that whereas this might be a useful gizmo, it’s controversial as the authorized commerce may permit loopholes for unlawful wild merchandise to enter the market. Traceability would be essential in stopping laundering, she added.
International rules and stress from world our bodies might help to show issues round. In 2023, Mexico was sanctioned by CITES for not doing sufficient to fight unlawful totoaba fishing and defend the vaquita, quickly suspending industrial commerce in any regulated wildlife between the nation and different events to CITES. The identical yr, the International Whaling Commission launched its first-ever extinction alert to warn of the potential hazard to the vaquita, in the hope that it will “generate support and encouragement at every level for the actions needed now to save the vaquita.”
Mosig Reidl believes that these frameworks “provide essential support by raising the profile of these issues and creating broader public awareness … enabling compliance measures and reinforcing political commitment.” While they “cannot replace national action, they strengthen accountability, transparency and coordinated responses for endangered species,” she mentioned.
The CITES Secretariat instructed NCS through e-mail that Mexico had made vital progress since 2023 in limiting unlawful fishing in the protected areas, nevertheless it famous that “sustained effort and continued vigilance remains essential.” The nation’s targets will be mentioned once more at the subsequent common assembly of the CITES Standing Committee, in November 2026.
In the final two years, the inhabitants of vaquitas has remained comparatively regular. While there’s a excessive degree of uncertainty in estimates of its numbers, “the population is not declining at the rate it was declining before,” mentioned Rojas Bracho.
He added that’s arduous to say whether or not the present inhabitants is growing or has stabilized, however that the identification of juveniles and calves in the most up-to-date survey is a really optimistic signal.
“If you have juveniles, that means they survived the most difficult years in their lifetime … and that you still see healthy animals producing calves. That’s something to be happy about.”