Saving Seafood

FLORIDA: Cortez fishers sound alarm on shark depredation

July 16, 2024 — A discussion has surfaced in Cortez where commercial fishers say they are reeling in the consequences of federal legislation aimed at conserving shark populations.

They say a 2011 law created hardships and they now are grappling with depredation issues caused by more frequent encounters with apex predators due to higher populations.

The Shark Conservation Act of 2011 was intended to improve shark conservation in the United States. The law amended the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 and the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act of 1992 and provides, in part, that sharks caught in U.S. waters must be brought to shore with fins naturally attached.

Shark finning, banned in many parts of the world, involves cutting off fins and discarding the fish, sometimes still alive. The fins often are used as an aphrodisiac or for soup that can cost up to $100 per bowl.

With protective legislation and bans in effect for more than a decade, fishers now say there are too many sharks.

“Regulation is good but a complete stop is too extreme,” said Nate Meschelle, a Cortez commercial captain, who spoke to The Islander July 11.

Read the full article at The Islander

In the fight to save the vaquita, conservationists take on cartels

February 17, 2021 — From above, the Sea of Cortez is a picture of serenity: turquoise waters lapping against rose-tinted bluffs and soft sand beaches. But down below, beneath the water’s surface, a war is raging.

Each year, typically between late November and May, huge gillnets — some stretching more than 600 meters (2,000 feet), or the length of five and a half football fields — are dropped into the waters to catch totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi). This critically endangered species is illegally fished for its prized swim bladders, which can fetch prices between $20,000 and $80,000 per kilo in China. While gillnets are highly effective at catching totoaba, they also catch just about everything else, including another critically endangered species: the vaquita (Phocoena sinus).

The vaquita is a bathtub-sized porpoise with silvery-gray skin and panda-like eyes that lives exclusively in a small section of the northern Gulf of California, close to the town of San Felipe in Baja California, Mexico. Right now, experts say there may only be about nine vaquitas left, despite the Mexican government spending more than $100 million to aid its recovery.

“The vaquita issue, in my opinion, is an example of epic, epic failure of conservation,” Andrea Crosta, executive director of Earth League International (ELI), an NGO that investigates wildlife crime, told Mongabay in an interview. “I don’t think rhinos and elephants combined have $100 million … and yet the vaquitas went from a few hundred individuals to … nobody knows how many now. Probably 12, 10, maybe less.”

But Crosta says it’s not the fishers deploying the gillnets that are the biggest threat to the vaquitas — it’s the people organizing the illegal trade of totoabas behind the scenes. They’re the ones placing the gillnets into the fishermen’s hands, he said.

Read the full story at Mongabay

Thanks to Mexico’s inaction, a cartel is causing irreparable damage in the ocean

December 5, 2019 — Mexico is infamous for its brutal drug cartels, which have terrorized not only the country but other large parts of Latin America. But there is one criminal organization that gets little press and that governments have yet to confront: the Cartel of the Sea. Inaction to confront this threat is having a huge economic and environmental impact in Mexico, with broader consequences for the planet.

This cartel’s business is not marijuana, cocaine or meth. It traffics in something that can be even more lucrative: the totoaba, an endangered fish. The cartel extracts the totoaba’s swim bladder, dries it and sends it to China. This is not only affecting the protected totoaba species but is also accelerating the extinction of the vaquita marina, a rare porpoise.

Many people in China believe that the buche — as the totoaba bladder is popularly known in Mexico — has aphrodisiac and medicinal properties, but there’s no scientific evidence to back this. It is also a status symbol: Serving buche soup is a sign of wealth, because one kilogram can cost more than a kilogram of cocaine — it can go for $100,000 in some Chinese cities and in New York’s Chinatown, according to investigative reports published by the nongovernmental organization Earth League International. It also communicates power, because the product comes from illegal fishing and one must have some influence to acquire it.

The Cartel of the Sea operations are based in northwestern Mexico, in the Sea of Cortez, a beautiful body of water that French explorer Jacques Cousteau once called the “world’s aquarium.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Mexico bans drift gillnets in Gulf of California in last-ditch effort to save vaquita

July 7, 2017 –Mexico’s government and American aid groups are taking drastic actions to preserve the vaquita, a critically endangered species of porpoise endemic to the northern Gulf of California.

Scientists estimate there are only 30 individual vaquita remaining, all residing in the upper area of what is also known as the Sea of Cortez. The primary threat facing the vaquita are driftnets used by fishermen fishing illegally for totoaba, another endangered species highly valued in China for its supposed medicinal properties.

On 30 June, in response to the vaquita’s dwindling numbers, the Mexican government instituted a permanent ban on drift gillnets in the Gulf of California (previous versions of the ban had been temporary measures). In addition, the government established more stringent monitoring measures and made it mandatory for fishermen to report all fishing gear they lose in the area, according to the Associated Press.

Mexico had been facing mounting pressure to take more comprehensive action to save the vaquita, including from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, as well as from international non-governmental organizations. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto posted several times on Twitter in June signaling he would enact more stringent measures to protect the vaquita, and shared a statement on the social media network after signing a memorandum of understanding committing to the gillnet ban.

“We have implemented a historic effort to avoid the extinction of a unique species, the vaquita marina, and to protect our ecosystem,” he wrote.

Read the full story at Seafood Source