Vaquita: Conservation

Episode 15: Vaquita: Conservation

Summary: The vaquita is balancing on the edge of extinction. With only 10 left, can we save these beautiful porpoises? Join Kiersten as she talks about the conservation efforts surrounding the vaquita.

 

For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.

 

Show Notes: 

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/vaquita-conservation-and-abundance

https://seasheperd.org/milagro/

Robinson, Jacqueline; Kyriazis Christopher; Nidenda-Morales, Sergio; Beichman, Annabel; Rojas-Bracho, LOrenzo; Robertson, Kelly; Fontaine, Micheal; Wayne, Robert; Lohmueller, Kirk; Taylor Barbara, and Morin, Phillip. “The critically endangered vaquita is not doomed to extinction by inbreeding depression.” Science, May 2022: Vol 376, Issue 6593, pg 635-639; DOI:10.1126/science.abm1742

 

Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez by Brooke Bessesen

Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Vaquita Conservation Organizations

porpoise.org

 

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

 

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

 

This episode continues the vaquita and the fifth thing I like about the vaquita is how much effort we are putting into conservation of this species! Regrettably, this will be my last episode about the vaquita. I wanted to do a full ten episodes but we know so little about this animal that I could only gather enough information to do five episodes. Also, a word of caution about this episode, it will be hard to listen to and it was incredibly emotionally for me to write, but this is an important part of the vaquita’s story and must be told. Have some tissues handy.

 

At the posting of this episode, in December 2022 there are only 10 vaquitas alive in the Sea of Cortez. They are the only vaquitas alive on the planet. There are no individuals in captivity. We have the slimmest of chances to save them from extinction and the odds are not on our, or their side, but we haven’t given up.

 

Conservation efforts concerning the vaquita began in 1972 when the United States gave them protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In 1975 Mexico also listed them as endangered. By this time, it was determined that the gill net fishing in the Sea of Cortez was greatly impacting not only the totoaba fish the nets were intended to catch but also the vaquita. 

 

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website gill nets are described as a wall of netting that hangs in the water column, typically made of monofilament or multifilament nylon. Mesh sizes can vary depending on species that you wish to catch but they are designed to allow the fish’ s head to get through but not the body. As the fish struggles to get free it gets more and more tangled keeping it captured until fishermen retrieve the nets. This type of fishing is not manned, it is a passive form of fishing that means fisherman can come by at different times to retrieve the fish caught in the nets. Commercial fisheries have been using this method to catch the totoaba, a fish that can grow to 6 feet long and is in great demand in Chinese markets, since the 1930s. 

 

These nets are huge risks to oxygen breathing animals that live in areas where they are used. Animals such as sea turtles, sea lions, dolphins, whales and porpoises can all die when caught in these nets because they become trapped under water and suffocate. 

 

In 1996 vaquita were listed as critically endangered by the International Union of Conservation of Nature, aka IUCN. In 1997, the first reliable estimate of the vaquita population was obtained through a cooperative Mexican-American survey. A total of 567 individuals were estimated by this survey. In 2008 another survey found only 245 vaquitas. This is a loss of 57%. That’s 322 individuals in eleven years. 

 

Now gill net fishing for totoaba had been outlawed in 1975 because of the severe decline seen in this species, but the swim bladder of this fish can bring a very high price on the black market, so fisherman were willing to risk punishment for the huge payday. In 2010 the totoaba were listed as critically endangered by the IUCN. Gillnets are still used illegally to catch this fish and these nets are also the main reason vaquitas are balancing on the edge of extinction.

 

In the last episode, I mentioned the Sea Shepherd Organization and the conservation efforts they are involved in. Let’s start with two projects focused on helping keep the vaquita safe in the Sea of Cortez.

 

Operation Milagro is a program in which the Sea Shepherd ships work in conjunction with Mexican authorities to crackdown on illegal fishing in the Sea of Cortez. The ships go out on daily tours looking for illegal fishing activity. When they spot someone or something suspicious they contact the Mexican Navy to investigate further. This is a band-aid on a fatal wound but the volunteers of Sea Shepherd are willing to do everything they can to help this marine mammal. 

 

Another project they are involved in, now that gill net fishing has been outlawed in the Sea of Cortez, is retrieving ghost nets. These are nets that have been abandoned by fisherman but still remain in the waters. They may not be used for fishing anymore but they still pose a threat to the aquatic life in the sea. 

 

Sea Shepherd ships use specialized equipment to find these nets and haul them aboard freeing any animals caught but still alive and untangling those that have perished. They throw these individuals overboard with heavy hearts knowing that they may help feed other animals in the water. The nets are dismantled and sent to an organization that is making shoes out of them. Parley for the Oceans has joined forces with Adidas to turn ocean trash and gill nets into running shoes.

 

The question that haunts conservationists is whether all of this work is too little too late? With only ten individual vaquitas left on the planet, are our efforts to save them from gill nets even worth it?

 

For those of you that remember the basics of high school genetics you probably know that when you have a small pool of mammalian genes, inbreeding can cause some serious problems. If animals, especially mammals, breed with family members that have genes that are too closely related it leads to genetic diseases, infertile offspring, underdeveloped offspring that may not survive, and other serious problems. 

 

A new study looking at the genetics of the vaquita sponsored by NOAA Fisheries, UCLA, University of Washington, United Nations Development Program in Mexico, the Center for Research in Ecology and Evolution of Disease in France, and Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences in the Netherlands may have an answer for us. The study published in May 2022 used tissue samples collected by Mexican researchers beginning in the 1980s. In an article on the NOAA Fisheries website, Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, a co-author of this study, is quoted as saying, “Genomics gives us clues into the species’ past but also lets us peer into the future. Despite the small numbers, the species could recover if we stopped killing them.”

 

What the study reveals is that the vaquitas population has always been small, compared to other marine mammals, fluctuating between 1,000 to 5,000 individuals over a period of 250,000 years. Why does this give researchers and conservationists hope for their survival? Quoting from the NOAA Fisheries article, “Smaller populations have less genetic variation from one animal to another, and fewer harmful mutations. Over time, when two animals with harmful traits occasionally mated, they produced compromised offspring that likely died. That process gradually purged many harmful traits from the population.”

 

The scientists involved with this research ran computer simulations based on the archived vaquita genetic samples. The simulations found that if we immediately stop the deaths of vaquitas in gill nets, they have a chance to recover. We can still save this amazing mammal from extinction, if we stop using gill nets in the Sea of Cortez. 

 

I hope that they next thing we hear r about the vaquita is that their population numbers are on the rise. If not they will most likely become extinct by the end of 2023.

 

Thank you for joining me in learning about the vaquita.

 

Please visit porpoise.org to find out even more about the vaquita and to discover what you can do to help this unique animal.

 

Join me next week for a look at our first misunderstood animal, tarantulas.

 

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.