Eight-hour Ocean Film screening event — the International Save the Vaquita Day 2017    ©WildAid

Five Guangdong local ocean conservation groups and two international environmental protection organizations, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and WildAid, jointly organized an eight-hour Ocean Film screening event on July 8, 2017, the International Save the Vaquita Day. The screening featured vaquita to raise public awareness on the plight of the species and the threats the ocean facing today.  What are the vaquitas?  Why do we need a special day dedicated to them? 

The Full Story

Vaquita is the world’s smallest and most endangered porpoise living in the northern parts of the Gulf of California in Mexico. The International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) estimated that a mere 22 of these animals remain. To save it from extinction, we need to stop the use of gillnets, which are used for shrimp fishery, and to stop the illegal totoaba trade. 

Vaquita    ©NOAA/Paula Olson  

The story of the vaquita’s decline is simple and tragic. Global experts have been ringing the alarm bell for decades. The population of Vaquitas have experienced a prolonged decline as a consequence of the local shrimp fishery industry using gillnets. The small porpoise gets entangled in the nets and drown. In 1977, the porpoise was listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Appendix I, banning its sale in international commercial trade. In recent years, the illegal fishing and trafficking of totoaba – another endangered species endemic to the Gulf of California that was similarly listed under CITES – has worsened the situation and accelerated the decline of the Vaquita population.  

 Totoaba    ©PROFEPA

The bycatch threat to Vaquita due to the illegal totoaba fishery have risen only since 2010 – the prized commodity being the totoaba swim bladders. The totoaba bladder is a replacement of the giant yellow croaker bladder, highly valued by some communities in Southern China. As the Chinese government banned commercial fishing of the giant yellow croaker, local people have begun to supplement their needs with the totoaba bladder.  The swim bladders was taken from the illegally fished totoaba in Mexico, smuggled into China and other Asia countries from Mexico and the U.S.

Today, the gillnet-toting Mexican shrimp fisheries is still one of the major reasons for the devastating bycatch of vaquita.  However, these shrimp fisheries refuse to take responsibility for bringing the vaquita to the verge of extinction. They point fingers at the illegal totoaba trade that seems to be giving the endangered porpoise the final fatal push. Despite voicing their commitment to “sustainability,” U.S importers of Mexican shrimps did little to demand Mexican fishers to comply with sustainable fishing practices by banning the use of gillnets.

The full story shows that all three countries, Mexico, the U.S. and China, need to work together to save this unique and highly vulnerable marine mammal. The good news is, in October 2016, CITES adopted decisions calling for international cooperation in combatting the illegal totoaba trade, out of the efforts by Mexico, China and the U.S. And last month, the Mexican government issued a permanent ban on gillnet fishing has gone into effect in a bid to save vaquitas. 

What We Can Do

Mexico: Enforcing Gillnet Ban

Two years ago, President Peña Nieto announced the Integrated Strategy for the Recovery of the Vaquita, which inspired extensive local actions to protect the vaquitas. Still, illegal fishing is rampant throughout the vaquita’s range. There is a critical need for more effective enforcement of existing fisheries regulations and the gillnet ban.  

The U.S.: Banning Import of Vaquita-harmful Shrimp and Fish Products

In February 2017, supported by NRDC, an assembly member of California State submitted a bill at the California legislature regular session to ban the import of all gillnet-caught shrimp and fish product from vaquita’s range in Mexico to California, the main destination of shrimp import and a major transit pathway for illegal totoaba bladders.  Once this bill becomes a law, it will permanently close the door for Mexican gillnet produced shrimp and fish products to enter California.

Lately, a petition—filed by NRDC, the Center for Biological Diversity (the Center), and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI)—have been sent to the U.S. government calling to ban the import of vaquita-harmful fish and fish products. We believe the ban will compel fisheries to stop using gillnets, which is one of the main causes of vaquita’s decline. 

China: Awareness and Enforcement Campaign

In December  2016, China stepped up as a leader to support the 2016 CITES decision on totoaba conservation by convening an enforcement workshop, kick-starting greater collaboration with the U.S. and Mexico to combat totoaba trafficking and providing tools to enforcement officers targeting domestic movement and sale of totoaba. The workshop invited delegates from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mexico’s Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection, and Hong Kong’s CITES Enforcement and Customs. All parties shared their hands-on enforcement experiences and efforts to combat totoaba trafficking.  In addition, the Chinese authorities introduced a mobile visual identification e-tutorial, which should facilitate quick on-site identification of totoaba swim bladders. 

Totoba Enforcement Workshop (December, 2016)    ©NRDC

In January 2017, China launched a month-long totoaba and Chinese bahaba crackdown and awareness education campaign in Guangdong Province. The efforts were focused on dried seafood markets, fish markets, retail, hotels, and restaurants in the major cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shantou.  This crackdown campaign occurred just before the Chinese New Year, a time when dried totoaba bladders are widely purchased as gifts.  The crackdown and awareness campaign was jointly launched by Fisheries Bureau of China’s Ministry of Agriculture, the market control and enforcement arm of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, and China’s CITES Management Authority.  The local seafood market association, seafood markets, as well as Alibaba and Tencent, (two of China’s major online market providers) supported the campaign to combat illegal totoaba trade and raise the awareness of traders and consumers to reject the products. 

 Combat the illegal sales of fish maw from protected species, the Chinese Bahaba and the Totoaba (January, 2017)    ©NRDC/WildAid

This is the first such multi-agency enforcement operation by China under its CITES commitments to non-native CITES appendix species, showing the country’s resolution to crack down the illegal trade of totoaba bladders. As China continues to fight this illegal trade, it is also strengthening partnerships with Mexican and American counterparts to improve effectiveness of totoaba protection efforts along the trade route. 

Despite the high price of the dried totoaba swim bladders, only a small group of people are illegally trading and consuming it in China.  The increasingly strict inspections are pushing this illegal trade further underground, which increases enforcement difficulty.  This again underscore the importance for all three countries to cooperate on intelligence-led investigation and controlled delivery.  

Mexico, China, and the US will meet again in Mexico to further discuss the enforcement cooperation throughout the entire trade chain this August.  With as few as 22 individual vaquitas left in the world, every effort counts in saving vaquita from extinction. NRDC applauds China’s leadership and critical steps in fighting against the illegal totoaba trade, and is glad to see the legislature efforts and public movement from the U.S.  We expect Mexico, home to vaquita, to further strengthen the source conservation and interim regulation to help the recovery of the vaquita population.