Vaquita - Marine Mammal Commission
Apr 16, 2015 · Vaquita. The tiny vaquita porpoise is the world’s most endangered marine mammal. Its numbers are decreasing with approximately 10 remaining. Vaquitas die from entanglement in illegal gillnets. Gillnets are used in a lucrative illegal fishery for totoaba that serves an illegal trade of swim bladders to China as well as in shrimp and finfish ...
• Vaquita population decline has accelerated, 49 % 2015-16 • September 2016 30 vaquitas remain • Gillnet ban to expire in April 2017
Expansion of the area of the Vaquita Refuge. Two year suspension of fishing activities that represent risk to vaquitas (esp. gillnets) Compensation to licensees, fishermen and other workers in the shrimp, finfish and shark fisheries. Community-based surveillance and enforcement scheme. Strengthening Mexico’s capacity to combat illegal fishing ...
Given the continued decline of the vaquita population, CIRVA considered the question of ex situ approaches to vaquita conservation. While recognizing the risks and complexities of such an approach, CIRVA concluded that fieldwork to determine the feasibility of ex situ conservation actions for the vaquita is warranted.
This independent committee has been charged with improving existing vaquita-safe fishing technologies (such as the small trawl to catch shrimp and traps and other gear for fish) to substitute gillnets which will be permanently prohibited starting September in the Upper Gulf of California, the only place on Earth where the vaquita exists.
Department of State’s budget for energy and the environment to recover the vaquita, a small porpoise found only in the northern Gulf of California. The species numbers about 150 individuals and is teetering at the very brink of extinction. The major threat is …
recovered, yielding 41 days of sampling data and a single day with vaquita detections. In 2016, surface buoys were used to mark each sampling site, resulting in greatly improved efficiency in checking CPODs and retrieving data. The spatial pattern of vaquita occurrence has been fairly consistent since monitoring began in 2011, although the
Vaquita Session Summary . In April 2015, the President of Mexico formally announced a two-year closure of the vaquita range to gillnets with a commitment to full enforcement and a program to compensate the fisherman and other sectors of the fishing community of the upper Gulf of California. Discussion is underway on a possible
California porpoise or vaquita (Phocoena sinus), the most endangered of all cetacean species. The vaquita is undergoing a catastrophic decline as a result of entanglement and drowning in gillnets used in the illegal fishery for a large fish species, the totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), in the Upper Gulf of California, Mexico.
vaquita is the marine mammal species most likely to go extinct.2 The primary threat is entanglement in gillnets set to catch shrimp and fish, primarily for U.S. markets. At the Commission’s May 2011 annual meeting, Mexican officials described their Action