In the Gulf of California, illegal fishing for totoaba, an endangered fish whose swim bladder is prized in China for its purported medicinal properties, has forced another species, the vaquita porpoise, to the edge of extinction. 52 WILD HOPE A TALE OF TWO SPECIES BOGLE SEAN BY PHOTOGRAPH WH__Mag17_Vol3_Pgs_CC.indd 53 1/23/17 10:08 AM Wild Lens, a wildlife conservation media company, has just released the first installment of Souls of the Vermillion Sea, a documentary about the vaquita’s plight and the efforts underway to protect it. Wild Hope spoke with filmmaker Sean Bogle to find out first hand how the future looks for the vaquita. WILD HOPE: Before going into spring every other year. It’s where there are underwater It’s a sad story really be- your reasons for making a not known if that’s due to an canyons and their food is cause this region of Mexico documentary, what can you tell us imbalance in the male-to- concentrated. The totoaba are was built around the totoaba about the vaquita’s life history? female ratio. So that’s a con- there for the same reason. And fshery back in the 1920s. SEAN BOGLE: The vaquita is servation concern — we’re not that’s where the trouble lies. People moved there because the most endangered marine sure if there are enough males The fshermen fsh these can- of totoaba, which are big fsh, mammal in the world — there or females to repopulate the yons because they know the and there were plenty of them. are probably fewer than 60 species. totoaba are going to be there. They could feed their fami- left. The reason they’re in It just so happens that the lies, and they could sell them. trouble is because they become WH: Where do vaquita live? vaquita eat the same prey as They also had an economy entangled in the gillnets SB: Vaquita inhabit the upper the totoaba, so they get caught based on totoaba sport fshing. fshermen use to catch shrimp Gulf of California. It’s thought in the gillnets the fshermen But once the Chinese started and totoaba and then drown. that their ancestors split off use to catch totoaba. exporting the bladders and Not much is known about the from a common ancestor of they became so valuable, and vaquita, which is one of the the Burmeister porpoise, a WH: But the totoaba is also fshing for totoaba became reasons why we’re making species that lives along the an endangered species, so isn’t illegal, they stopped eating the this documentary. Apart from west coast of South America, it illegal to fish for totoaba? fsh. Because they knew it was trying to save the species from and then became trapped in SB: Yes! The Mexican Govern- illegal to catch totoaba, they extinction, we hope to learn the upper Gulf of California ment declared a total ban on began gutting the fsh, taking more about it. 1 to 2 million years ago. If totoaba fshing in 1975, and in the bladder and then dump- Vaquita are elusive, shy you’re a creature that wants to 1976 the totoaba was placed ing the fsh because they animals, so they’re diffcult to avoid any kind of contact, the on the endangered list of the don’t want to be caught with study. They’re hard to detect upper Gulf of California is the Convention on International it. They can hide a bladder, because they leave a small perfect place to be because Trade in Endangered Species but not a whole fsh. footprint. They only surface the sediment coming in from (CITES). But because of the for about three seconds and the Colorado River makes demand for totoaba swim WH: Why is there a demand then dive down, come up the water extremely murky. bladders in China and because for totoaba swim bladders again three-to-four minutes Visibility is no more than two enforcement has been lacking, in China? later, and then they’re gone. or three feet. So the vaquita fshermen are willing to risk SB: Historically, the Chinese They’re also sensitive to noise have a wonderful curtain getting caught fshing for used the bladders for medici- pollution from large boat en- to hide behind. Their only totoaba illegally. They can get nal purposes, primarily as an gines and keep their distance. predators, historically, were as much as US$4,000 for a ingredient in skin creams and The vaquita is the smallest sharks. But sharks have been single swim bladder, which will ointments that supposedly cetacean in the world, at the virtually eliminated from the sell for upwards of US$20,000 make you look or feel younger. opposite end of the spectrum area because of overfshing, in China. If they can sell a It’s also used as an aphrodisiac. from the blue whale. An adult and also gillnetting. So the few bladders, they’ve made Now, demand has increased measures four or fve feet long. vaquita don’t really have any enough money to support along with the growth of Infants aren’t much bigger natural predators anymore. their family for a year. And China’s middle class, creating than a rugby ball. They don’t The vaquita’s range used to because there’s so much money more of a demand for totoaba travel in large pods. You be from shore-to-shore, from to be made, there’s corruption. bladders as status symbols usually just see individuals or San Felipe to Santa Clara. But If they get caught fshing and currency. Essentially, pairs. The most that have been now, because there are so few illegally, they just pay a bribe they’ve become the “ivory seen at one time is four or fve, of them, they’re isolated in an and go back to what they were of the ocean.” which are likely families. area just north of San Felipe doing. Corruption is really Vaquita have a slow repro- what’s killing the vaquita. Gill- duction rate and deliver off- nets are the direct cause, but the indirect cause is corruption. 54 WILD HOPE WH_Mag17_Vol3_Pgs_Rev_CC.indd 54 2/3/17 10:28 AM WH: How do we know the vaquita that showed the population WH: What’s being done today WH: What impact has the govern- population is declining? is down to 60. That’s a 92% to protect the vaquita? ment compensation program for SB: When American biologists decline since 1997. Obviously, SB: In April 2015, Mexico’s fishermen had? Ken Norris and William Mc- the gillnet ban hasn’t worked. President, Enrique Peña SB: The compensation pro- Farland frst documented and Nieto, announced a two-year gram that the government described the vaquita in 1958, WH: How are these surveys ban on gillnets throughout implemented in 2008 was it was thought even then that conducted? the vaquita’s range — so he supposed to give fshermen the species was in decline. In SB: They use a combination of expanded the size of their money for turning in their 1986 the International Union visual surveys — actual vaquita protected area beyond what gillnets and getting into for Conservation of Nature sightings done from a ship — was established in 2005. In some other livelihood like listed the vaquita as “vulner- and acoustic monitoring sur- July 2016, the ban was made eco-tourism or sport fshing. able”; by 1990 the status had veys. That information is then permanent. They were told they would changed to “endangered”; and extrapolated to come up with receive what they would make then in 1996 they were de- a population assessment. Dr. WH: How is the ban being in a year from fshing. But clared “critically endangered.” Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho and Dr. enforced? in 2008 the world economy The frst full-scale survey of Armando Jaramillo-Legoretta SB: Primarily, the Mexican collapsed. When that hap- vaquita was conducted by the from Mexico’s Instituto Nacio- Navy is responsible for patrol- pened, everything stopped; no US Southwest Fisheries Sci- nal de Ecologia began doing ling the waters and enforcing tourists showed up, and the ence Center (SFSC, a branch acoustic monitoring of vaquita the ban. But during one of fshermen went back to fshing of the National Oceanic and back in the ‘90s. Because the times I was there flming, illegally for totoaba because Atmospheric Administration) their high frequency echoloca- I saw two Navy cruisers just they didn’t have any money. in 1997. They estimated there tion clicks are unique, vaquita sitting out at sea and two Navy So here we are in 2017. When were 567 animals. In 2005 the can be distinguished from patrol ships that stayed in the the expanded gillnet ban was Mexican government set aside other cetaceans in the area. harbor the whole time. And implemented last year, the a Vaquita Refuge in the upper From the data, scientists can I saw illegal fshing happening compensation program was Gulf of California, which en- determine trends in vaquita every day. The rumor was that supposed to support fsher- compassed about 775 square abundance. Initially, the the Navy didn’t have enough men while they transition to miles of the vaquita’s core acoustic monitoring was done fuel to operate the ships. using alternative fshing gear range, and prohibited the use from the survey ships. But in Later I learned that the Navy like trawl nets with exclud- of gillnets in the area, however 2011, they set up a grid of 48 ramped up their efforts after ers for totoaba, vaquitas and the ban wasn’t enforced.