Death Of Mexican Fisherman Could End Protections For Critically Endangered Vaquita

Speaker 1: 00:00 The death of a Mexican fisherman may be the final straw in the years, long effort to save the most endangered Marine mammal on earth. The vaquita porpoise in the Gulf of California this week, a group of Mexican agencies will issue recommendations on limiting the protected zone for the remaining of Akita critics claim. The Mexican government has been more interested in saving the endangered porpoise and appeasing foreign environmentalist's than protecting local fishermen. Meanwhile, environmentalist fear that relaxing protections for the Nikita could mean extinction joining me a San Diego union Tribune reporter, Wendy fry, Wendy, welcome to the program. Speaker 2: 00:40 I'm Ryan. Thanks for having me. Now Speaker 1: 00:42 We've reported on the efforts to save the vaquita on a number of occasions on this program and none of those efforts sounded like they would endanger anyone's life. So how did the death of this fishermen happened? Speaker 2: 00:54 There's been clashes that have been intensifying for a couple years now. They're in the sea of Cortez between the fishermen and the environmentalist and the sea shepherd. Um, you know, the, the Mexican Navy is embedded with them. And so they often capture video of what's going on when they go to try to remove these huge gillnets out of the ocean, they encounter pushback. Um, and those that pushback has been getting increasingly violent over the past couple of years. And so it's not quite a hundred percent clear exactly what happened, but there was a collision between a very small panga boat and the larger sea shepherd vessel that resulted in one, one Mexican fishermen being very severely injured and another passed away from the injuries. Speaker 1: 01:48 And can you remind us why are the fishermen so opposed to the protections in place to save the vaquita? Speaker 2: 01:55 So they use gillnets there in the sea of Cortez as their livelihood to, to catch fish. One of those fishes is the totoaba, which is a very, um, high, high price. It gains them a big profit, right? So they, they, but there's a lot of other fish too, that they, they catch there and that's their, that's how they feed their families. That's how they live, um, off the sea there. And so their objection is to the economic problem with having the environmentalist remove their gillnets basically they're trying to support their family is what their point of view is. And, um, they don't like this for an intermission intervention over the Nikita Speaker 1: 02:38 House and fishing for the totoaba have been illegal for many years. Speaker 2: 02:42 Yes, it's um, decades it's been on Mexico's own, um, endangered species list as well. And so that has been endangered for many years. There's been an effort to, to farm this species, um, and bring it back. So they're considering a range of different recommendations that they plan to make later this week. And one of those is just going ahead and allowing and making it legal to fish the total bla. Speaker 1: 03:09 Now, besides banning the use of gillnets as the Mexican government had in the past, has fishing also been limited to certain areas to try to protect the Akita, Speaker 2: 03:20 Right? So in the more Northern area of the sea of Cortez, that's where the protection zone is. Um, right now it's very large, but they, they believe that the Paquita the last remaining, but key just stay up there to the North. So they're considering just reducing the amount of area in the sea. That's protected to more where they believe those last remaining 10, but keep that live. Um, and so of course the fisherman went, the whole place opened up to where they could, you know, use their gillnets wherever in that area and the, the environmentalist and the protection agencies want to keep as much of that area, uh, banned for gillnets as possible. Speaker 1: 04:02 Use the use of gillnets a problem for vaquita. Speaker 2: 04:06 So they get caught in these fisherman's net and they drown in large numbers. So they, they, they feed off fish that live close to the fish that the fishermen is trying to catch. And then they get caught in the gillnets and drown Speaker 1: 04:20 In terms of information, the vaquita porpoise is a species that exists only in the Gulf of California. It's small, it's exceptionally cute. And its present population is dangerously low. Can you tell us again, how many vacated are alive? Speaker 2: 04:36 Right. So it's not, you know, they don't go check in anywhere, so they don't have a total exact count, but even the environmentalist estimate that they're down to dozens, maybe even as low as 10 left. So that's very, I mean, on the brink of extinction, this species, and yes, they are very cute. Um, Marine mammals, and they're very dangerously close to extinction. I think that the, the estimate that they gave the Mexican government, the environmentalist gave the Mexican government is 10. Now a lot of time, Speaker 1: 05:06 Time and money has been spent trying to keep this species alive. Some estimates are up to $100 million. Why is it important to keep the Kita in the Gulf of California? Speaker 2: 05:17 So the, the species that they feed off of below them and the food chain, like the small fish and the squid and the crustaceans and stuff, they, they keep those species in check. So anytime that you lose, uh, an entire species, it has all these domino, um, impacts on the rest of the environment and the support does. So that's why the environmentalist have fought so hard to, to protect this, this, uh, Marine mammal, so that, so that they can keep the rest of the environment they're functioning. Like it's supposed to. Now what happens Speaker 1: 05:51 Happens after these Mexican agencies make their recommendations about the vaquita protections, what next? Speaker 2: 05:58 I asked two different lawmakers that, and they, they have two different perspectives or two different senators. And Mexico gave me two different answers on that. Um, one, you know, things that, uh, the Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez, Obrador can just kind of unilaterally accept or not accept this decision, um, that this, uh, like it's like the EPA, it would be the equivalent of the EPA makes, uh, others think it has to come to a vote because they did vote initially to put those protections into place. So that is going to be interesting to see what exactly happens afterwards. But, um, generally speaking, the president will direct kind of where it goes next. And he, he has spoken in support of the fishermen, um, and, and started taking a pretty sympathetic, uh, view to their plight and, and saying that, you know, that it is important to protect their economic livelihood too. Speaker 1: 06:53 Okay. Then I've been speaking with San Diego union Tribune, reporter, Wendy fry, Wendy. Thank you. Thank you.