Mexico Bans Night Fishing, Gillnets to Save Vaquita The Associated Press
go to original July 22, 2016

Despite a ban that started in April, some Mexican fishermen are still using gillnets in the northern Gulf of California to the detriment of critically endangered endemic porpoises. (Greenpeace)

Mexican authorities say they are banning night fishing and gill nets in an area inhabited by the endangered vaquita marina porpoise.

Listen: The world’s most endangered marine mammal is a small porpoise called the vaquita - Spanish for little cow. The vaquita has been under threat for years, but now the poaching of a rare fish may be driving the tiny Mexican porpoise to extinction. (PRI's The World)

The national fisheries commission says fishermen in the upper Gulf of California will also have to leave and return from specially designated docks, to help enforce the measures. It says that gillnets, the use of which was already suspended in the area, are now prohibited permanently.

The vaquita is the world's smallest porpoise, and only around 60 remain in the Gulf of California, the only place in the world they live. The vaquitas are threatened primarily by gillnet fishing for the totoaba fish, another endangered species in the area that is hunted for its swim bladder, which is considered a delicacy in China.

Read the rest at ABC News

Related: The Marine Mammal Center Responds to U.S.-Mexico Agreement to Protect Vaquita Porpoise (Patch)

Related: Joint Statement in Response to US/Mexico's Renewed Commitment to Imperiled Vaquita (Animal Welfare Institute)

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