Featured Image Credit:InHabit.com
By Kimberly Snyder
Apparently, night-vision drones aren’t just for the military anymore. Since August, the Mexican government has been using drones to police fishing activities along the upper Gulf of California. This surveillance comes as part of a last ditch effort to stop the extinction of an incredibly rare porpoise: the vaquita.
Vaquita porpoises (vaquita means “little cow” in Spanish) are the world’s rarest marine mammal. They measure only 5 feet long and weigh up to 120 pounds, which is tiny for a cetacean. Dark gray, with a stubby nose and dark rings around their eyes, these incredibly shy creatures inhabit the shallow waters close to the northern shores of the Gulf of California. With only 60 individuals estimated to be remaining in the world, conservation organizations are desperate to protect them.
The vaquita has only been recognized as a species since 1958. In the past 50 years alone, their population has drastically declined by 92%. The reason has been linked directly to the use of fishing material called gillnets.
Gillnets are vertical nets designed with specific mesh sizes that allow the head of a fish to pass through but not their body. Many fish are captured when they try to wriggle out and instead get caught by the gills. In the Gulf of California these nets are used to catch totoaba, a highly endangered fish, because their swim bladders fetch high prices on the Chinese black market. Unfortunately, gillnets also snare vaquitas. The small cetaceans quickly become tangled and eventually drown. Death by gillnets has single-handedly caused the vaquita population to drop from 567 in 1997, to 200 in 2012 and down to today’s estimated 60 individuals.
In an effort to halt extinction, this past August, a gillnet ban went into effect throughout the Gulf of Mexico. But that’s not enough. Night fishing is still legal and popular in this portion of the Gulf, which makes policing the use of gillnets a nearly impossible task.
This is where the drones come in.
The drones provide eyes in the sky for wildlife trafficking officers, who are then able to locate, identify and put a stop to the illegal use of gillnets in protected areas after dark.
With this technology on their side, the hope is that the ban will finally be effective in halting the slaughter of vaquitas; giving these guys a chance to recover and swim free.
Want to learn more about the world’s most endangered marine mammal? Check out our sources here and here.