US Navy-trained dolphins and their handlers are to participate in a last-ditch effort to catch, enclose and protect the last few dozen of Mexico’s critically endangered vaquita porpoises to save them from extinction.
International experts confirmed the participation of the US Navy Marine Mammal Program in the effort, which is expected to start sometime this spring.
Jim Fallin of the US Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific on Tuesday said that the dolphins’ participation is still in the planning stage.
The dolphins are to use their natural sonar to locate the extremely elusive vaquitas, then surface and advise their handlers.
“Their specific task is to locate” vaquitas, which live only in Mexico’s Gulf of California, Fallin said. “They would signal that by surfacing and returning to the boat from which they were launched.”
The dolphins have been trained by the navy for tasks such as locating sea mines.
The vaquitas, the world’s smallest and most endangered porpoise species, have been severely hit by illegal fishing for the swim bladder of a fish, the totoaba, which is a prized delicacy in China.
Although the vaquita has never been held successfully in captivity, experts hope to put the remaining porpoises in floating pens in a safe bay in the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez, where they can be protected and hopefully breed.
Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, chairman of the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita, wrote that “an international group of experts, including [US] Navy personnel, have been working on two primary goals: Determining the feasibility of locating and catching vaquitas, as a phase one. And as a second phase, to determine the feasibility of temporarily housing vaquitas in the Gulf of California.”
Rojas-Bracho said the effort by the international team of experts “would involve locating them, capturing them and putting them in some kind of protective area,” probably a floating enclosure or pen in a protected bay where they would not be endangered by fishing nets.
Mexico has banned gill nets that often trap vaquitas in the area, but has had trouble enforcing it because the totoaba draws very high prices on the illegal market.
“At the current rate of loss, the vaquita will likely decline to extinction by 2022 unless the current gill-net ban is maintained and effectively enforced,” Rojas-Bracho wrote.
According to estimates, with vaquita population numbers falling by 40 percent annually, and only 60 alive a year ago, there could be as few as three dozen left.
Some experts, such as Omar Vidal, Mexico director of the WWF, oppose the capture plan, which could risk killing the few remaining vaquitas and open up a free-for-all of illegal fishing once they are removed from their natural habitat.
“We must strive to save this porpoise where it belongs: In a healthy Upper Gulf of California,” he said.
Catch-and-enclose is risky. The few remaining females could die during capture, dooming the species. Breeding in captivity has successfully saved species such as the red wolf and California condor, but the vaquita has only been scientifically described since the 1950s and has never been bred or even held in captivity.
Experts including Rojas-Bracho, as well as Barbara Taylor and Sarah Mesnick of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that the capture program “should not divert effort and resources away from extension and enforcement of the gill-net ban, which remains the highest-priority conservation actions for the species.”
Veterinarians would evaluate vaquitas’ reactions and release stressed individuals, they wrote, adding that should a death occur, the team would re-evaluate the sanctuary strategy.
“It is important to stress that the recovery team goal is to return vaquita from the temporary sanctuary into a gill-net-free environment,” they wrote.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in