Talk of renewed totoaba fishing spurs vaquita porpoise worries

Mexico’s top fishing official says the country hopes to lift the commercial fishing ban on totoaba, this even though experts fear the move could ensure the extinction of another species that inhabits the upper Gulf of California—the vaquita porpoise. The totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), which is endemic to the Gulf of California, has for years been listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Pablo Arenas, General Director of Mexico’s National Fishing Institute (Inapesca) since 2015, disclosed the government’s desire to lift the ban in Sept. 20 remarks to Excelsior, a Mexican daily newspaper. Arenas said that a forthcoming, two-year study by the institute shows the totoaba is no longer in danger of extinction, and that its population has recovered enough to allow it to be commercially fished if that fishing is carried out in a responsible way. The totoaba has been a favorite... [Log in to read more]

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