The Mexican Navy on Tuesday said that it has begun a controversial plan to drop concrete blocks onto the bottom of the Gulf of California to snag illegal nets that drown critically endangered vaquita porpoises.
As few as eight of the tiny, elusive porpoises remain in the gulf.
It is the only place they live, and they cannot be captured and bred in captivity.
Photo: AP
Vaquitas become trapped and drown in gill nets that fishers set illegally for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is a delicacy in China and sells for thousands of dollars per kilogram.
The Mexican government has largely abandoned efforts to keep small fishing boats out of a 288km2 “zero tolerance” area near San Felipe, Baja California, where the few remaining vaquita have been seen.
Environmentalists on Tuesday said that the plan to sink 193 concrete blocks was approved with no public comment and expressed concerns that the metal hooks attached to the blocks might accumulate remnants of nets that could continue to entangle and drown sea life.
“This is a total surprise, because the environmental impact statement was approved in record time, in six weeks. It wasn’t opened to public comment,” said Alex Olivera, the Mexico representative for the Center for Biological Diversity.
The Mexican Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources said that there had been no public comment, but added that was because nobody had requested one.
Doubts about the plan abound.
It would scatter one block, with a metal hook attached, every 1km over the “zero tolerance” area.
It is not clear how, or whether, any snagged nets would be recovered from underwater.
“A net can be snagged on these hooks, and we don’t know, we’re talking about nets that are hundreds of yards [meters] long, so we don’t know if a net snagged down there might be a double-edged sword, and trap vaquitas,” Olivera said.
Abandoned nets, known as “ghost nets,” can continue killing marine life for years.
Another expert, who did not want to be cited by name out of concern over reprisals, said that the plan might discourage the illegal fishers by causing them to lose nets to the snags.
However, it would crucial for the navy to regularly clear out any snagged nets, “or other species could be killed down there,” he said.
In a statement announcing the plan, the navy mentioned “recovering detained nets.”
In practice, it would probably require divers to descend and manually cut nets off each of the 193 blocks every few days.
Given the defiance of the fishers and the lucrative nature of the illegal trade in dried totoaba bladders, there is also no guarantee that fishers might not mark — either physically or with GPS — the location of the blocks and fish around them.
Last year, the Mexican government abandoned the policy of keeping fishing boats out of the “zero tolerance” zone.
It then introduced a sliding scale of punishments if more than 60 fishing boats are seen in the area on multiple occasions.
Olivera expressed doubts.
“They can’t be checking these blocks every day,” he said.
Earlier this year, the US filed the first trade-based environmental complaint under the US-Mexico-Canada trade pact, arguing that Mexico is failing to protect the species.
Mexico has agreed to an investigation.
Under the treaty, which took effect in 2020, the complaint could lead to trade sanctions.
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